Philippines 🇵🇭

The Philippines is a sovereign country in South-Eastern Asia, in the wider region of Asia. The long form of the name is Republic of the Philippines. The capital is Manila.

Its territory runs to 342,353 km², which ranks it 65th of the 249 countries and territories in this dataset — just behind Germany and just ahead of Congo. That makes it almost exactly the same size as Finland.

Some 115.8 million people call it home, placing it 14th of 249 by population — between Egypt above it and DR Congo below. Within South-Eastern Asia alone it is the 4th largest of 11 and the 2nd most populous.

Philippines has no land border with any country, which changes what "nearby" means. Measured centre to centre in a straight line, the closest other entry on this site is Taiwan, roughly 1,170 km away. These are approximate distances between representative points, not the shortest crossing between two shorelines, so treat them as a sense of scale rather than a sailing chart.

Being surrounded by water rather than by neighbours pushes a country's relationships outward. Palau sits in a different world region from Philippines yet ranks among its closest geographic company — the kind of pairing that only shows up once you stop thinking in continents.

No land border also means no land crossing: everything and everyone arrives by sea or by air. That single fact drives a lot of what follows on this page, from how goods reach the shops to why Philippines's dialling code and internet domain are worth knowing before you travel.

The coordinates the dataset gives are 13.0° N, 122.0° E, which puts it in the northern hemisphere, roughly 1,447 km from the equator, in what geographers would call tropical latitudes.

Sudan, Chad and Yemen sit at almost exactly the same latitude on other parts of the globe.

There is no land frontier at all — every boundary it has is a coastline. That puts it among the 85 entries of 249 here with no land neighbours, which shapes how it trades and who it deals with.

Spread across 342,353 km², that works out at about 338 people per square kilometre, which makes it densely populated. For comparison, the median entry on this list sits near 91 per square kilometre.

2 languages carry official status: English and Filipino. Filipino is listed for no other entry in this dataset, which makes it effectively unique to the Philippines. English, the first listed, is shared with 90 other entries worldwide.

The demonym is Filipino, so residents are Filipinos.

Inside Asia it places 7th of 50 by population, and it accounts for 17% of everyone living in South-Eastern Asia.

Put next to every other entry on this site, Philippines ranks 65th of 249 by area and 14th by population. That works out at 0.23% of the combined land area of all 249 entries and 1.4% of their combined population. Those denominators matter: this list includes territories and dependencies as well as UN member states, so a rank here is not the same as a rank among sovereign countries.

For a sense of scale, the entries immediately either side of Philippines in the size ordering are Germany at 357,114 km² and Congo at 342,000 km², against Philippines's 342,353 km². If you can already picture one of those, you can picture this one.

Density tells a different story from either raw figure. Philippines averages 338 people per square kilometre of total area, which makes it densely settled by global standards — 40th of the 247 entries that have both a population and a measured area. Total area includes inland water, so the true figure for habitable land is higher than this.

The Philippine peso (PHP) is used only in Philippines among the 249 entries on this site. Its own currency is one of the clearest markers of an economy that sets its own monetary policy rather than importing somebody else's.

Language reaches wider still. English is listed for 91 entries here, Philippines among them, so a visitor who speaks it can be understood across a large part of the map. Shared language tends to outlive the empires, trade routes and migrations that spread it, which is why the linguistic map and the political one rarely line up.

It uses the Philippine peso (₱, PHP). It shares that currency with.

The top-level domain is .ph. The international dialling code is +63. In ISO terms it is ph in two letters and PHL in three.

If a quiz asks for the capital of the Philippines, the answer is Manila.

The Philippines is one of the 192 UN member states in this dataset. The other 57 entries are territories, dependencies or observers, which is why totals on this site run to 249 rather than the familiar 195.

Zoom in from the world to South-Eastern Asia and Philippines sits 2nd of 11 by population and 4th by area. Its immediate company in that ordering is Indonesia just above and Vietnam just below, which is a more honest comparison set than a global league table.

Indonesia is the largest of the group by population, and every entry in South-Eastern Asia has its own page here if you want to work through the whole neighbourhood rather than one country at a time.

• 🇮🇩 Indonesia
• 🇻🇳 Vietnam
• 🇮🇩 Indonesia