Itbayat
Itbayat
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Itbayat

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Itbayat

Itbayat, officially the Municipality of Itbayat, is a municipality in the province of Batanes, Philippines. According to the 2024 census, it has a population of 2,937 people.

The municipality is the country's northernmost municipality, located 156 kilometers (97 mi) from the southernmost tip of Taiwan.

By land area, the main island of Itbayat is the largest in Batanes. The municipality includes the rest of the province's northern islands, all small and mostly uninhabited. These islands are, from south to north: Di'nem Island, Siayan, Misanga, Ah'li, and Mavulis Island, the northernmost island of the Philippine archipelago.

Between 2,000 and 4,000 years ago, a wave of animist-polytheist Austronesians arrived on Itbayat and became the ancestors of the island's people. Torongan Cliff is home to the Torongan Cave, which the island's ancestors used as their abode. The early people of the island also established the sacred Axurud, the oldest stone tomb in Batanes.

A church and civil government were established in Batan Island in 1783. In 1855, civil authority was established and the mission canonically founded in Itbayat. A settlement during the Spanish colonial period, it became a municipal district when the Americans organized the province in 1909. Finally, in 1935, it became a municipality.

On September 14, 2016, Typhoon Meranti (Ferdie) made landfall on Itbayat while at peak intensity, as a Category 5-equivalent super typhoon, with the eye passing directly over the island. During landfall, the storm's powerful winds caused extensive damage and knocked out the island's communications systems.

On July 27, 2019, a series of destructive earthquakes, the largest of them being recorded to be magnitude 6.0, caused severe damage around the town. Nine people died as a result, and sixty were injured.

In 2024, Barangay San Rafael hosted the April 14 to June 6 Balikatan exercise involving the construction of humanitarian, logistics and disaster relief warehouse at Sitio Kagonongan, a supply depot area at the San Rafael National Food Authority warehouse and an American physician’s assistant station and lodging facilities for American soldiers at Itbayat District Hospital.

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