Kawit, officially the Municipality of Kawit (Tagalog: Bayan ng Kawit), is an urban municipality in the province of Cavite, Philippines. According to the 2024 census, it has a population of 123,631. It is one of the notable places that had a major role in the country's history during the 1800s and 1900s.

Formerly known as Cavite el Viejo, it is known as the birthplace of Emilio Aguinaldo, the 1st President of the Philippines, who from 1895 to 1897, served as the municipality's chief executive. The Aguinaldo home, where independence from Spain was declared on June 12, 1898, is now formally called the Aguinaldo Shrine.

The name Kawit is from the word kalawit (referring to either a fish hook or a larger fishing contraption, referring to the area's traditional pescetarian lifestyle and cuisine).

The name Kawit is derived from the Tagalog word kawit or kalawit (hook), which is suggestive of its location at the base of a hook-shaped shoreline along Manila Bay extending to the tip of Cavite City.

Legend, however, gives another version on how the town got its name. One day, a Spanish visitor asked a native blacksmith about the name of the village. The latter was busy at the time pounding on the anvil a piece of hot metal that looked like a hook. He hesitated to speak, not understanding what the stranger was asking, but when pressed for an answer, and thinking that he wanted to know what he was doing, he merely said kawit. The Spanish left muttering the word kawit. In the course of the time, the word evolved into cauite, and finally cavite.

Kawit was the most thriving settlement prior to the coming of the Spanish. In fact, the town provided the first anchorage of the Spanish in the province, whence colonization and proselytization of the Christian religion began, spreading to all corners of the province. It was established as a town in 1587 or, as recognized by laws, on August 1, 1600.

For a long time, the place was called by the Spanish "Cavite el Viejo" or Old Cavite to distinguish it from "Cavite la Punta" or "Cavite el Puerto", the commercial port and naval base (now Cavite City) whence came many Spanish marines on shore leave who made frequent visits to Cavite el Viejo, eventually turning it into a red-light district. This seedy reputation of the town was erased when Saint Mary Magdalene was made patroness, under the spiritual supervision of the Jesuits as ordered by Miguel García Serrano, O.S.A. (1618–1629), the fifth Archbishop of Manila.

With the establishment in the wake of the Philippine Revolution, the Philippine Independent Church built a shrine to Saint Michael, the Archangel in the barrio of Binakayan in 1902.