The Philippines.

The Philippines is a democratic republic and located in a tropical area of Southeast Asia. The neighbor countries are Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and Brunei. They are all member-countries of the Association of Southeast Asion Nations, also know as ASEAN (its predecessor in the Great Malay Federation, which was coprised of the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia). 

Here are a few maps to show where the Philippines is located..

The Philippines is an archipelago with a total land area of 300,000 sq km and more than 7,100 islands, of which 880 are inhabited. There are three geographical groups in the country: Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. The northern portion of the archipelago is composed of the largest island, Luzon. The Visayan region is made up of about 6,000 islands including Panay, Leyte, Samar, Cebu and Bohol. Mindanao is the second largest island and encompasses about 400 smaller islands.

Here is a map to show the major islands.

The climate is a tropical marine climate with northeast monsoons from November to April, and southwestmonsoons from May to October.

The majority of Filipinos (as citizens of this country are called) are descendants of the wave of Malay people that came from Malay peninsula and Indonesian archipelago over two thousand years ago.

Around the 12th century, a unique Filipino culture has evolved with influences from the Malay, Chinese, Arabian an Indian civilazations. Spanish colonizer succeeded in introducing Christianity in Luzon and Visayas but were unsuccessful in Mindanao, where Moslem staved off Spanish  efforts.

The total population at that time was estimated at 750,000 to a million. The present population of Manila (the capital) alone is over 10 million. The national figure stands at about 70 million.

The Philippines has over hundreds of dialects, of which 7 are spoken by over a million. The national language is called Filipino, which is primarily derived from Tagalog. English is used as a second language, and is primary medium of instruction for education, government and business. As such, most Filipinos are able to communicate in English - foreigners are often surprised when they encounter natives in remote villages that actually speak fluent English.