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Example research essay topic: 16 Th Century 20 Th Century - 2,812 words

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Philippines Philippines is a country in Southeast Asia. It is an archipelago consisting of some 7, 100 islands and islets lying about 500 miles off the coast. The total land area of the Philippines is 115, 800 square miles. It is bounded by the Philippine Sea to the east, the Celebes Sea to the south, and the South China Sea to the west and north. The Philippines takes its name from Philip II, who was king of Spain during the Spanish colonization of the islands in the 16 th century. Manila is the biggest city and the national capital.

It is located on Luzon, the largest island, which has a land area of 40, 420 square miles. Mindanao, at 36, 537 square miles the second largest island, lies in the south. The archipelago spreads out in the form of a triangle, with the islands south of Palawan, the Sulu Archipelago, and the island of Mindanao forming (wettest) its southern base and the Batan Islands, in the north, its apex. The islands stretch for about 1, 150 miles from north to south and for about 700 miles from east to west at their widest extent. Only about two-fifths of the islands and islets have names, and only some 350 have areas of one square mile or more.

The large islands fall into three groups: (1) the Luzon group in the north and west, consisting of Luzon, Mindoro, and Palawan; (2) the Visayan group in the centre, consisting of Bohol, Cebu, Leyte, Masbate, Negros, Panay, and Samar; and (3) Mindanao in the south. In ancient times, the inhabitants of the Philippines were a diverse agglomeration of peoples who arrived in various waves of immigration from the Asian mainland and who maintained little contact with each other. The Philippines is the only nation in Southeast Asia that became subject to Western colonialism before it had had the opportunity to develop either a centralized government ruling over a large territory or an advanced elite culture. Chinese traders were known to have been resident from about AD 1000, and some cultural influences from South Asia, such as a Sanskrit-based writing system, were carried to the islands by the Indonesian empires of ri vijaya and Majapahit; but in comparison with other parts of the region, the influence of both China and India on the Philippines was of little importance. The peoples of the Philippine archipelago, unlike most of the other peoples of Southeast Asia, never adopted Hinduism or Buddhism.

Because it was under Spanish rule for 333 years and under U. S. tutelage for a further 48 years, the Philippines has many cultural affinities with the West. It is, for example, the fourth most populous country in which English is an official language and the only predominantly Roman Catholic country in Southeast Asia.

Its peoples, however, are Asian in consciousness and in aspiration. In many ways Filipino society is composed of paradoxes, perhaps the most apparent being the great extremes of wealth and poverty in the nation. The Philippines is a country of rich resources, but it is in the process of developing its full potentialities. It is primarily agricultural, although a high degree of domestic and foreign investment has spurred the rapid development of its industrial potential. Educationally, it is among the most advanced of Asian countries, having a high literacy rate. The climate of the Philippines is tropical and is strongly affected by monsoon (rain-bearing) winds, which blow from the southwest from approximately May to October and from the northeast from November to February.

Thus, temperatures remain relatively constant from north to south during the year, and seasons consist of periods of wet and dry. Throughout the country, however, there are considerable variations in the frequency and amount of precipitation. The western shores facing the South China Sea have marked dry and wet seasons. The dry season generally begins in December and ends in May, the first three months being cool and the second three hot; the rest of the year consists of the wet season. The dry season shortens progressively to the east until it ceases to occur. During the wet season, rainfall is heavy in all parts of the archipelago except for an area extending southward through the centre of the Visayan group to central Mindanao and then southwestward through the Sulu Archipelago; rain is heaviest along the eastern shores facing the Pacific Ocean.

From June to December typhoons often strike the archipelago. Most of these storms come from the southeast, their frequency generally increasing from south to north; in some years the number of typhoons reaches 25 or more. Typhoons are heaviest in Samar, Leyte, eastern Quezon province, and the Batan Islands, and when accompanied by floods or high winds they may cause great loss of life and property. Mindanao is generally free from typhoons. November through February constitutes the most agreeable season; the air is cool and invigorating at night, and the days are pleasant and sunny. During the hot part of the dry season in most places, and especially in the cities of Cebu, Davao, and Manila, the temperature sometimes rises as high as 100 F.

Overall temperatures decline with altitude, however, and cities and towns located at higher elevations such as Baguio in northern Luzon, Majayjay and Lucian south of Manila, and Malaybalay in central Mindanao experience a pleasant climate throughout the year; at times the temperature in these places dips as low as 43 F. Before the arrival of the Spanish in the 16 th century, the people lived in small independent villages called barangay's, each ruled by a petty king called a date. Rural settlement today is centred upon poblaciones, or small towns, originally founded by the Spanish. Roads or trails were built from the poblacion in four to six directions, like the spokes of a wheel, and along the roadsides barrios, or villages, grew up, subdivided into smaller units called sitios.

More people now live inthe barrios than in the poblaciones. A large barrio may be composed of as many as 1, 000 households and have a population of 4, 000 or more. The cultivation of rice or corn (maize) and fishing provide the basic subsistence. Manila, Cebu, Jan, Via, and Nueva Caceres (now called Naga) were granted city charters by the Spanish. More chartered cities were founded under U. S.

administration and since independence in 1946. Quezon City was chartered in 1939 and became the capital of the Philippines in 1948. In 1975 Manila, Panay City, Caloocan, and Quezon City and 13 adjoining municipalities were placed under one administrative unit known as Metropolitan, or Metro, Manila. The city proper of Manila was again made the national capital in 1976; Metropolitan Manila is designated the National Capital Region. In addition to the cities there are a great many municipalities and a number of municipal districts. Their ancestors of Filipinos, who were of Malay stock, came from the southeastern Asian mainland as well as from what is now Indonesia.

From the 10 th century, contacts with China resulted in a group of mixed Filipino-Chinese descent, who account for a minority of the population. A small percentage of Chinese nationals also live in the country. Spanish-Filipinos and Filipino-Americans may be distinguished by their fairer complexion, taller stature, and aquiline nose structure. The relatively small numbers of emigrants from the Indian subcontinent added to the population's racial mixture. There are small numbers of resident U.

S. nationals (excluding military personnel) and Spaniards. The aboriginal inhabitants of the islands were the Negritos, or Pygmies, also called Aetas or Balugas; they now constitute only a small percentage of the total population. The great majority of Filipinos are Roman Catholic; adherents of the Philippine Independent Church (the Aglipayans), Muslims, and Protestants are the largest religious minorities, including a Protestant sect called Iglesia ni Cristo. There are also some Buddhists and animists.

Roman Catholicism has been strengthened by an increase in the number of Filipinos in the church hierarchy, the building of seminaries, and the increased involvement of the church in the political and social life of the country. The population density of the Philippines is high some 500 people per square mile (193 per square kilometre) on the average although the distribution of the population is uneven. Population density in urban areas is extremely high that of the National Capital Region is about 30, 000 per square mile while density in such outlying areas as the Batan Islands and northeastern Mindanao is considerably lower than the national average. Because it is largely a Roman Catholic country and because most of its population is rural, the country has a high birth rate.

Efforts since the mid- 20 th century at reducing the overall growth rate have had some success, but reductions in the birth rate have been partially offset by reductions in the death rate. Especially since World War II, population has tended to move from rural areas to towns and cities. At the beginning of the 20 th century more than 80 percent of the population was rural, but by the late 1980 s the number had dropped to less than 60 percent. There is also a considerable amount of Filipino emigration, particularly of manual labourers and professionals. Many emigrants have gone to the United States, Okinawa, Guam, and Canada; in addition, a large number of skilled and semiskilled workers have taken temporary overseas assignments, mainly in the Middle East.

The Philippines is rich in mineral resources. There are major deposits of gold in northern and southern Luzon; iron ore in northern Mindanao and on nearby islands and in central Luzon; copper in west-central Luzon; lead and zinc in western Mindanao; and high-grade chromium ore (chromite) in west-central and southern Luzon, northern Mindanao, and central Palawan. Deposits of silver, nickel, mercury, molybdenum, cadmium, and manganese occur in several other places. Nonmetallic minerals include limestone for cement, found on Cebu, Luzon, and Romblon; salt and asbestos on Luzon; marble on Romblon and Panay; asphalt on Leyte; mineral waters on Luzon; gypsum on Luzon; sulfur on Luzon, Leyte, and Mindanao; guano and phosphate rock on Cebu and Bohol; coal and silica on Cebu and Palawan; and petroleum off the northwest shore of Palawan.

At one time about half of the Philippines' total land area was covered with forests. Of this, a large part abounded with trees of commercial value, especially batan, narrow (species of Pterocarpus, used in cabinetmaking), ii (India beluga), move (Vitex littoral is), and kampong (Diospyros discolor). Heavy logging and inadequate reforestation measures, however, have reduced considerably the amount of forested land. No fewer than 2, 000 varieties of fish are in the seas surrounding the islands and in lakes, rivers, estuaries, and fish ponds.

The most important commercial fishes are milkfish (a herring like fish), anchovy, herring, sardine, mackerel, grouper, snapper, cavalla, mullet, barracuda, mudfish, and casino. Fish are raised in ponds in some provinces of Luzon and Panay. There are pearl beds in the Sulu Archipelago to the south, and mother-of-pearl used for making buttons is exported to China and elsewhere. Tortoiseshells and shells used for windows are exported to Singapore, Malaysia, and other countries. Hydroelectric power in the past has supplied only a small proportion of the country's electrical output, with thermal plants, most of which burn imported oil, supplying the major proportion.

But the completion of several dam projects on Luzon and the expansion of another project on Mindanao have increased the percentage of power generated by hydroelectric installations; irrigation and flood control are additional benefits of some of the projects. Dependence on foreign oil has also been reduced by the construction of geothermal and conventional coal-fired thermal plants. The Philippines is chiefly an agricultural country. Its soil is rich and fertile, and crops grow abundantly throughout the year. The principal farm products are rice, corn (maize), coconut, sugarcane, abaca (Manila hemp), tobacco, maguey (used for making such products as rope), and pineapple. Many tropical fruits are also raised, the most important being banana, mango, laser, or luzon (Lansium domestic), citrus, and papaya.

A wide variety of vegetables are raised for domestic consumption. Rice, the principal staple crop, is grown everywhere, but especially in central and north-central Luzon, south-central Mindanao; western Negros and eastern and central Panay. Much of the total farmland is used for rice growing. Since the early 1970 s, rice production in the Philippines has improved considerably, and in some years the country has had surplus rice available for export. Factors contributing to this increase in output include the development and use of higher-yielding strains of rice, the construction of feeder roads and irrigation canals, and the use of chemical fertilizers and insecticides. Use of scientific farming techniques in the Philippines, however, has had its drawbacks.

The newer strains of rice have required the application of chemicals that are expensive and that generally must be imported. The Philippines is one of the world's largest producers of coconuts and a major exporter of coconut products. The area devoted to coconut production is second only to that used for rice and corn. The Philippines also produces more than one-third of the world's copra. Sugar is one of the country's top exports and earns a substantial amount of foreign exchange. Sugarcane is grown extensively in central and north-central Luzon, western Negros, and on Panay.

Much of the sugar crop is exported to the United States. Abaca, or Manila hemp, the source of a useful plant fibre, is also an important export. It is grown extensively in eastern Mindanao, southeastern Luzon, and on Leyte and Samar. High-quality timber and veneer products traditionally have been leading exports, although their importance has declined. Other forest products include dyewoods, rattan, tanbark's, gutta-percha, beeswax, and rubber. Fishing is also one of the most important of Filipino industries.

Canned tuna is the principal fish exported, and fish provides an important proportion of the protein in the Filipino diet. Commercial fishing is carried on primarily off Palawan, Negros, Mindanao, and Panay. The principal minerals mined include gold, silver, iron, copper, manganese, zinc, lead, coal, and chromite; some petroleum is also extracted. Many of these minerals notably cooperate produced for export and thus are vulnerable to fluctuations in world demand. Much industrial growth has taken place in the Philippines, particularly in the 1950 s and the 1970 s, but the manufacturing sector is still in an early stage of development. Many factories are licensees of foreign companies or act as subcontractors for foreign firms, turning out finished products for export from imported semifinishedgoods.

Major manufactured goods include processed foods and beverages, petroleum products, textiles and wearing apparel, and chemicals. In addition to the Central Bank of the Philippines, there are commercial banks, thrift banks, and rural banks. Banking operations are also conducted by such other institutions as the Philippine National Bank and the Development Bank, of the Philippines. The principal exports are electronic equipment, coconuts and coconut products, minerals (copper, gold, iron ore), sugar, and garments. The principal imports are fuel, machinery, transport equipment, and electrical equipment.

Major trading partners are the United States, Japan, The Netherlands, and Germany. The government of Philippines derives its revenue from three major sources: taxation, earnings and other credits, and extraordinary income, including the transfer from special funds (that is to say, funds derived primarily from unexpended balances in the budget that are deposited as savings accounts). Revenue is collected principally through the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Bureau of Customs. Excise taxes constitute the single largest portion of government income; import duties, corporate and individual income taxes, and sales taxes provide a substantial portion of the remainder. Local governments have only limited taxing powers. GDP per capita in Philippines is $ 4, 200, which is not the best result in South East Asia.

In 1998, the Philippine economy - a mixture of agriculture, light industry, and supporting services - deteriorated as a result of spillover from the Asian financial crisis and poor weather conditions. Growth fell to 0. 6 % in 1998 from 5 % in 1997, but recovered to about 3. 4 % in 1999, 4 % in 2000, and 3. 4 % in 2001. In 2002, the Philippines recorded GDP growth of about 4. 6 % but also incurred a record budget deficit. As a result, the Philippines is burdened with a public sector debt equal to more than 100 % of GDP. The government has promised economic reforms including going forward with privatization, reforming the tax system, and promoting additional trade integration within its region. (web) The recent turn-around in Philippine economy has motivated many Filipino business executives and professionals - who left the country several years before due to a bleak economic future - to return home and work. They bring with them expertise, ideas, and the competitive experience of having worked successfully abroad.

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Research essay sample on 16 Th Century 20 Th Century

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