Luzon

Luzon (/luːˈzɒn/ loo-ZON, Tagalog: [luˈson]) is the largest and most populous island in the Philippines. Located in the northern portion of the Philippine archipelago, it is the economic and political center of the nation, being home to the country's capital city, Manila, as well as Quezon City, the country's most populous city. With a population of 64.3 million as of 2024^[update], it contains 55% of the country's total population and is the 4th most populous island in the world. It is the 15th largest island in the world by land area.

Luzon may also refer to one of the three primary island groups in the country. In this usage, it includes the Luzon Mainland, the Batanes and Babuyan groups of islands to the north, Polillo Islands to the east, and the outlying islands of Catanduanes, Marinduque and Mindoro, among others, to the south. The islands and provinces of Masbate, Palawan and Romblon are also included, although these three are sometimes grouped with another of the island groups, the Visayas.

The name Luzon is thought to derive from ᜎᜓᜐᜓᜅ᜔ lusong, a Tagalog word referring to a particular kind of large wooden mortar used in dehusking rice. A 2008 research paper by Eulito Bautista and Evelyn Javier provides an image of a lusong, explaining:

Traditional milling was accomplished in the 1900s by pounding the palay with a wooden pestle in a stone or wooden mortar called lusong. The first pounding takes off the hull and further pounding removes the bran but also breaks most grains. Further winnowing with a bamboo tray (bilao) separates the hull from the rice grains. This traditional hand-pounding chore, although very laborious and resulted in a lot of broken rice, required two to three skilled men and women to work harmoniously and was actually a form of socializing among young folks in the villages.

In old Latin, Italian, and Portuguese maps, the island is often called Luçonia or Luconia.^{[excessive citations]}

Luções, [luˈsõjʃ] (also Luzones in Spanish) was a demonym used by Portuguese sailors in Malaysia during the early 1500s, referring to the Kapampangan and Tagalog people who lived in Manila Bay, which was then called Lusong (Kapampangan: Lusung, Portuguese: Luçon), from which Luzon was also derived. The term was also used for Tagalog settlers in Southern Tagalog region, where they created intensive contact with the Kapampangans. Eventually, the term "Luzones" would refer to the settlers of Luzon island, and later on, would be exclusive to the peoples of Central Luzon.

Before 1000 CE, the Tagalog, Kapampangan, and Pangasinan peoples of south and central Luzon had established several major coastal polities, notably Maynila, Tondo and Namayan. The oldest known Philippine document, written in 900, is the Laguna Copperplate Inscription, which names places in and around Manila Bay and also mentions Medan, a place in Indonesia. These coastal Philippine kingdoms were thalassocracies, based on trade with neighboring Asian political entities and structured by leases between chiefs or lords (Datu) and paramount lords (Lakan) or Rajahs, by whom tributes were extracted and taxes were levied. These kingdoms were under the competing influence of Hinduism, Animism, or Islam. Before that, from 2500 - 2000 BCE, Kapampangans along with Sambal people and Hatang Kayi settled south Luzon; subsequently, from 1200 - 1000 BCE, the migrating Tagalog settlers from eastern Visayas or northeast Mindanao stayed in south Luzon and they made contact with the Kapampangans, Sambal people and the Hatang Kayi, of which contact with the Kapampangans was most intensive; after this, the original settlers moved northward: Kapampangans moved to modern Tondo, Navotas, and Central Luzon (modern Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Aurora, Pampanga, south Tarlac, and east Bataan), and Sambals to the modern province of Zambales, in turn, displacing the Aetas.

There was also a Buddhist polity known as Ma-i or Maidh, described in Chinese and Bruneian records in the 10th century, although its location is still unknown and scholars are divided on whether it is in modern-day Bay, Laguna or Bulalacao, Mindoro.