The national territory comprises the Philippine archipelago, with all the islands and waters embraced therein, and all other territories over which the Philippines has sovereignty or jurisdiction, consisting of its terrestrial, fluvial, and aerial domains, including its territorial sea, the seabed, the subsoil, the insular shelves, and other submarine areas. The waters around, between, and connecting the islands of the archipelago, regardless of their breadth and dimensions, form part of the internal waters of the Philippines.
Island groups of the Philippines The Philippines is divided into three island groups of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.
Luzon and Mindanao are named after their main islands of the same names, while the Visayas (the Visayan Islands) is an archipelago Divisions The different islands are grouped into separate island groups by virtue of their regions: Regions I to V, CAR and NCR are for Luzon, Regions VI to VIII are for Visayas, and Regions IX to XIII and ARMM are for Mindanao. If a province is reassigned into a new region, it can also be reassigned to a new island group, as is the case with Palawan, when it was reassigned from MIMAROPA.
The island groups themselves do not have governments of their own, but are instead divided into provinces, cities, municipalities and barangays, which do have their own local governments. Government Although the island groups do not have local governments, hence capitals, certain cities have become the political, economic and cultural centers of the island groups. Manila is the national capital and is the de facto capital of Luzon, though Quezon City, the former capital, has more inhabitants than Manila.
