Babuyan Island

Babuyan Island (sometimes called Babuyan Claro) is the highest and northernmost island in the Babuyan Islands in Luzon Strait north of Luzon Island in the Philippines and also directly south of Taiwan via Bashi Channel to Luzon Strait. The whole island makes up the barangay of Babuyan Claro, that constitute the municipality of Calayan in Cagayan province. The volcanic island has a population of 1,423 as of the 2010 Census.[3]

Babuyan Island
Smith Volcano in the foreground with Babuyan Claro (behind), the two active volcanoes of Babuyan Island
Babuyan Island
Location within the Philippines
Geography
Coordinates19°31′20″N 121°57′13″E
ArchipelagoBabuyan Islands
Adjacent bodies of water
Length8 mi (13 km)
Width6 mi (10 km)
Coastline24 mi (39 km)[1]
Highest elevation3,543 ft (1,079.9 m)[2]
Highest pointBabuyan Claro
Administration
RegionCagayan Valley
ProvinceCagayan
MunicipalityCalayan
BarangayBabuyan Claro
Demographics
Population1,423 (2010)

History

The language of Babuyan Island is sometimes classified as a dialect of Ivatan. Babuyan was depopulated by the Spanish and only repopulated at the end of the 19th century with families from Batan Island, most of them speakers of one of the Ivatan dialects.[4]

Geography
Babuyan is the northernmost island of the Babuyan archipelago

Babuyan Island lies about 27 mi (43 km) south-southwestward of Balintang Islands, and about 55 mi (89 km) northward of Cape Engaño Lighthouse. The nearly triangular island is about 8 mi (13 km) long in a northeast and southwest direction, with an average width of about 6 mi (9.7 km). The island seems to be steep all around. A reef projects from its western point. The south point is steep and rocky with a black, rocky, sugarloaf islet, called Pan de Azucar, close inshore.[5]

Volcanoes

Near the western point of the island is Smith Volcano, also known as Mount Babuyan, about 2,257 ft (688 m) high. In the middle of the island and east-southeastward from Smith is Babuyan Claro, also known as Mount Pangasun, about 3,543 ft (1,080 m) high, between which the mountains are much lower, so that from a considerable distance eastward it appears as a round mountain with a detached hillock northward. There are three other volcanic cones with no historic eruptions on the island - Cayonan, Dionisio and Naydi.[2]

See also

References
  1. Measured using Google Earth
  2. "Babuyan Claro". Global Volcanism Program. Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 2013-04-09.
  3. "Municipality/City: CALAYAN". Philippine Standard Geographic Code (PSGC) Interactive. Retrieved on 2013-04-01.
  4. Ross, Malcolm (2005). "The Batanic Languages in Relation to the Early History of the Malayo-Polynesian Subgroup of Austronesian" (PDF). Journal of Austronesian Studies. 1 (2). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-03-22. Retrieved 2012-10-15.
  5. U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey (1919). "United States Coast Pilot, Philippine Islands, Vol. 1". Government Printing Office, Washington.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.