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Tacloban is the capital of Leyte and the regional centre of Eastern Visayas, a highly urbanized city of 259,353 people in 2024 and the most populous in the region. It lies on the northeastern tip of Leyte, where Cancabato Bay meets the San Juanico Strait that divides Leyte from Samar.
Once a fishing place called Kankabatok, it was named after the taklub, a bamboo trap for crabs and shrimp. It became the capital of Leyte in 1830 and a chartered city in 1952, was the temporary capital of the Philippines from 1944 to 1945, and was devastated by Typhoon Haiyan on 8 November 2013.
Visitors see the Santo Niño Church and the Marcos-era Santo Niño Shrine, the Price Mansion and the provincial capitol, then cross the San Juanico Bridge. In late June the city celebrates its fiesta and the Pintados-Kasadyaan Festival, with painted dancers in the streets.
Tacloban Santo Niño Church, now an archdiocesan shrine, was founded by the Augustinians in 1770. Its image of the Child Jesus, thought lost at sea, reached the port on 30 June 1889 and was credited with ending a cholera outbreak, and the church was restored after Typhoon Haiyan.
The Santo Niño Shrine and Heritage Museum is a former Marcos family residence built by Imelda Marcos from 1979 to 1981, one of 20 presidential palaces of the martial law era. Seized by the state, it is now a museum of her collection and of objects linked to the Santo Niño, the city's patron.
The Price Mansion was built in 1910 by Walter Scott Price, an American army engineer remembered as the King of Tacloban, with one room for each of his 12 children. General MacArthur used it as his headquarters in 1944, and the hole a Japanese bomb made in the roof above his room is still kept.
The Leyte Provincial Capitol in Tacloban is a neoclassical building of 1917 to 1924 by Antonio Toledo, with two rows of ten Ionic columns. From October 1944 to February 1945 it was the seat of the Philippine Commonwealth government, and Sergio Osmeña was sworn in as president inside it.
The San Juanico Bridge links Tacloban, Leyte, with Santa Rita, Samar across the San Juanico Strait, a steel girder viaduct with an arched truss main span, 2.16 kilometres long. Opened in 1973 as the longest bridge in the Philippines, it is part of the Pan-Philippine Highway and a tourist attraction.
The San Juanico Strait is a channel about 38 kilometres long that separates the islands of Samar and Leyte and joins the Samar Sea with San Pedro Bay. Only 2 kilometres wide at its narrowest point, it is crossed by the San Juanico Bridge, and the Tacloban harbour lies at its southern entrance.
Cancabato Bay lies on the eastern side of Tacloban at the southern mouth of the San Juanico Strait, and the city harbour on its shore is the main port of Eastern Visayas. Its well-placed and sheltered port was the reason Tacloban was made the capital of Leyte in 1830, after other towns.
The Tacloban Astrodome, officially the Tacloban City Convention Center, is an indoor arena for 4,500 people that opened in 2006 and hosts basketball and concerts. It sheltered evacuees during Typhoon Haiyan in 2013 and was badly damaged, and part of it was later turned into a museum of the disaster.
The Pintados-Kasadyaan Festival in Tacloban honours the Santo Niño with dancers painted like the tattooed pintados warriors whom the Spanish met in the 16th century. Organised since 1986 by the Pintados Foundation and later merged with the Kasadyaan Festival, it is held each year on 29 June.
The Sangyaw Festival is a yearly festival in Tacloban in honour of the Santo Niño, with street dancing, ritual performances and colourful costumes that show the heritage of the Waray people. Its name means to proclaim in Waray; it was created by Imelda Marcos in the 1980s and revived in 2008.
The Balyuan Rites of Tacloban, held since 1975, re-enact a told exchange of Santo Niño images between Kankabatok, the old name of the city, and the village of Buscada in Basey, Samar. A flotilla from Basey sails in procession to the city, and a call blown on a shell horn announces its arrival.
The MV Eva Jocelyn Shrine in Anibong, Tacloban, is a ruined ship that Super Typhoon Yolanda, known abroad as Haiyan, washed ashore in November 2013 and that now stands as a memorial. The storm drove a surge of about 4 metres into the city, and the shrine recalls the lives that were lost.
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Calabarzon, Philippines
National Capital Region, Philippines
Western Visayas, Philippines
Davao Region, Philippines
Cordillera Administrative Region, Philippines
Calabarzon, Philippines
National Capital Region, Philippines
Western Visayas, Philippines
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