Sources and methods

Every figure in the Atlas comes from an official dataset or a published source, named on the page that shows it. This page sets them out by kind, and says how Scene computes the figures they do not print themselves.

Built from the PSA's list of places, PSGC 2nd Quarter 2026, as of June 30, 2026 · Release 4b394c914208 · Sources read up to October 9, 2026.

Sources: 3,566
Publishers: 1,089
Datasets: 19
Sources read: September 24, 2026 to October 8, 2026

Datasets

Each kind of figure across every place that shows it, with where it comes from and what Scene adds. Each of the PSA's tables carries its own notes, printed beside the table on its dataset's page.

Sources, by kind

3,566 sources in 6 kinds. Each kind lists its sources in full, 50 to a page, with the day Scene read each one and its licence.

The Philippine Statistics Authority's tables are open data under its terms of use, credited to the PSA as each table names its source. Scene does not change their figures; what it adds is listed below. A border on Scene is a guide, not the legal boundary.

How Scene computes the rest

Annual growth rate: The geometric rate between two censuses, over the exact time between their reference days, in years of 365 days: r = ((P1 / P0)^(1/t) − 1) × 100. Every rate the PSA also publishes, for regions, provinces, cities and municipalities, is checked against it, and the build stops if one differs; a barangay's rate is computed the same way from its own counts.
Barangays' 2015 and 2020 counts: From the PSA's PSGC list of 31 December 2022, the last to carry every barangay's 2015 and 2020 census counts, joined to today's list by each barangay's code, or the old code today's list keeps beside a new one. The PSA no longer links that file, so the Atlas reads the copy the Internet Archive keeps of it, byte for byte; its counts are the same as the PSA's census workbooks, barangay by barangay. A count is shown as a barangay's own only when it counted the same place: where a barangay then still included another made later, its page says so in words and shows no growth across the change. Where the PSA's lists do not say how a town's barangays changed, none of that town's barangays shows an earlier figure: the PSA counted them, but no earlier count is directly comparable with today's barangay.
Barangays' 2010 counts: From the National Statistics Office's files of the 2010 Census of Population and Housing, one for each of the 17 regions of 2010, as the Internet Archive kept them. A count is shown only where the barangay is the same place: it is named once in its town's 2010 list, the town is matched to that list by its name together with the 2010 total this Atlas already holds for it, and the PSA's list of changes records no creation, division or merger of it since the census day (1 May 2010). Where a count is not shown, the page says which of these it is. In every town matched, the barangays' counts add up to no more than the town's own 2010 count, and in most they add up to it exactly.
Age structure of cities and municipalities, 2020: Where the 2024 census tables give a city or municipality no age structure, the page shows the one of the 2020 Census of Population and Housing: the household population by five-year age group and sex, from the PSA's revised file. It stands only where its total is within a tenth below the 2020 count the PSA published for the same place and never above it (one town, Kalayaan, is accepted below that: its table counts 92 people in households against the 193 counted in 2020). Where the table describes another area than the one shown (after boundary changes), or has no row, the page says so. The PSA publishes no age structure for a barangay.
Both sexes, corrected by Scene from the PSA's men and women: In the PSA's 2024 age table, 19 places (provinces and highly urbanized cities) print a both-sexes count for their two oldest groups that is not the sum of their men and women, although their men and women columns add up exactly to the place's totals for all ages. Where that is so, Scene shows the sum of the men and the women for the group, marks the figure as corrected by Scene, shows what the PSA prints beside it, and keeps the printed value in the release. A table whose columns do not add up to the totals is shown as printed.
Island groups: Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao are how the Atlas groups the regions to help a reader find them; they are not a level of government, and the PSA publishes no figures for them. Each region is grouped where its islands lie: MIMAROPA with Luzon, the Negros Island Region with the Visayas. An island group's population, land area and counts are its regions' official figures, added up by Scene.
Land area: Regions, provinces, cities and municipalities show the official land area: the Land Management Bureau's 2019 Masterlist of Land Areas, as the PSA publishes it. A barangay has no official land area in any national dataset, so its page shows the area inside its border on UN OCHA's map, measured on the Earth's surface, and says it is approximate. Those borders are a guide, so a town's page also says how far its barangays' areas, added up, fall from its official one.
Population density: Population divided by land area. For cities, municipalities and up, the PSA's own figure from the official land area; for a barangay, its 2024 population divided by its approximate area.
Coordinates: The point inside a place's border farthest from every edge (its pole of inaccessibility, found with Mapbox's polylabel), so it always falls within the place, unlike a centre point that can land outside a curved border. It is found to within a ten-thousandth of the place's own size: about a metre for a barangay, about thirty for a region.
Neighbours: Places whose borders run alongside each other for at least 75 metres, read from UN OCHA's map at full detail and checked every 25 metres. Touching at a corner, or facing each other across water, is not a shared border.
Nearest across the water: A province, region or barangay that shares no land border with another of its level, such as an island province, lists instead the places of its level nearest it across the water: up to four, within 250 kilometres for a province or region and 25 for a barangay; a barangay far out at sea, with none that near, lists its two nearest however far. The distance is measured between the two borders where they come closest, on the Earth's surface, from the same borders as the maps; it is not a boat or ferry route. The direction is from one place's centre point to the other's.
Maps and outlines: Every map is drawn from UN OCHA's barangay borders. A city or municipality is drawn as its barangays joined into one outline, a province as its cities and municipalities, a region as the cities and municipalities the PSA lists under it, so every level's border matches the borders inside it exactly. On every map the places inside it are coloured so that no two that touch share a colour; the country's map is coloured by island group. A border is a guide, not the legal boundary.
Distances: In a straight line between the coordinates above, on the Earth's surface; not by road.
Landmarks and public places: Named schools, hospitals and health centres, places of worship, government offices, markets, stations, parks, beaches and monuments, as OpenStreetMap's contributors map them, for the whole country, from Geofabrik's extract of 30 September 2026. Each place is given to the barangay whose border on UN OCHA's map holds its point (a building or an area by its centre). Within 300 metres of that border, or where the place's own name says which barangay it belongs to, the barangay its own address names decides. A place in no barangay at all, such as a beach whose point lies past a coastline drawn inland, is given to the nearest barangay within a kilometre; an islet farther out is left out. A place inside the Subic Bay Freeport Zone, as OpenStreetMap outlines it, is named by the Freeport and listed on its town's page. A barangay's page lists every place given to it. A town's page lists all but its schools, places of worship, barangay halls and places known only by a common name (a chapel, a day care centre), which are listed on their barangays' pages; a province's page lists its stations, parks, beaches and monuments; every page counts all of them. Health means public health: hospitals and health centres, not private doctors', dental, eye, skin or diagnostic clinics. A place drawn twice under the same name is listed once. A place with no name of its own is named by its name in English, its official name or another name it is known by; places tagged as disused or abandoned, couriers' counters mapped as post offices and family graves are left out. The list is only as complete as the map: a missing chapel is one nobody has mapped yet.
Urban and rural: The PSA's classification from the 2024 census. A barangay is urban when it has 5,000 people or more, or at least one establishment with 100 employees or more, or five or more establishments with 10 to 99 employees and five or more facilities within two kilometres of its barangay hall; every barangay of Metro Manila is urban (PSA Board Resolution No. 01, Series of 2017-098).
What no source gives: Where the Atlas asks for a figure that no source gives a place, its page says so in the figure's place, with the publication that names none: not yet published (a town made after the agency's last list), not comparable (a count of a barangay before it was divided from another) or not found. It never shows a zero, a dash or an estimate of Scene's own instead. A figure that does not apply to a place, such as a governor for a barangay, is simply not shown.
Links to Wikidata: A place links to its Wikidata item only when the item carries the place's own PSGC code (Wikidata's property P988), is the same kind of place, and lies in the item already linked to the place's parent; a place that fails any test has no link. Names are never compared. The link tells search engines which item describes the same place; no figure, name or classification on a page comes from Wikidata. Wikidata is published under CC0.

What the Atlas covers so far

Researched by hand, with a sourced history: 18 regions, 82 provinces, 149 cities, 1,493 municipalities, 16 barangays.
From the datasets alone: 41,995 places, with no written history until a source is found.

The PSA's own notes

30 of the PSA's tables carry technical notes. Each note is printed in full beside its table, on the page of the dataset that uses it: