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| Ethnic
Groups |
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Ethnic diversity is considered to be one of the
most important elements in understanding the province's development
potentials as well as its problems.
The province is shaped historically by various
migration patterns with the Subanen people being the longest established
group. This was followed by the Muslims and then by the Visayans.
Other notable migrations came in later adding to accelerate development
of the area. These are the Chavacano, Tagalog, and Muslims from
neighboring provinces. On the percentage of ethnic grouping and
dialect spoken, the 1995 official census divided the population
of the province into tribal groups based on their mother tongues.
With the population growth rate of 1.74 % in 1995 to 2000, it is
expected that these percentage still prevail in the year 2000. Cebuano
is 77.60 %, Subanen is about 9.01 %, Muslims is 6.6 %, Chavacanos
is 1.33 %, Ilocanos is 1.02 %, Tagalogs is .32 %, Chinese is .03
% and others is 4.05 %.
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| Religious
Groups |
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| Religion is an important social
element in the lives of the people in the province. Roman Catholic
is overwhelmingly dominant among the Visayan, Chavacano and Luzon-originated
ethnic groups. This is embraced by more than two-fifths of the population.
However, it appears that other Christian groups have gained some ground
in the province. These include the Evangelical Churches, United Church
of Christ in the Philippines, Seventh Day Adventist, Jehovah’s
Witnesses, Aglipayan, Iglesia Ni Kristo and other religious sects.
Next to Roman Catholics, the Evangelical groups are the second dominant
religious group in the province. |
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| Population |
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In the span of five (5) years (1995-2000), the
population of the province increased from 766,918 to 836,147, a
growth of 1.74%, lower than the previous five years (1990-1995)
of 2.01%. Although a slight decrease of .27% was noted, the province
is expected to double its population in year 2029. The male/female
ratio in 1995 was 104.28 while in year 2000 it was 103.18.
The population density moved up from 162 persons
per square kilometer in 1995 to 177 persons per square kilometer
in 2000.
The province is predominantly rural of which only
about 37% of the population reside in the urban areas.
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