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55-515: The barangay ( / b ɑːr ɑː ŋ ˈ ɡ aɪ / ; abbreviated as Brgy. or Bgy. ), historically referred to as barrio , is the smallest administrative division in the Philippines . Named after the precolonial polities of the same name , modern barangays are political subdivisions of cities and municipalities which are analogous to villages , districts, neighborhoods, suburbs , or boroughs . The word barangay originated from balangay ,

110-475: A barrio is a division of a municipality officially delineated by the local authority at a later time, and it sometimes keeps a distinct character from other areas (as in the barrios of Buenos Aires , even if they have been superseded by larger administrative divisions). The word does not have a special socioeconomic connotation unless it is used in contrast to the centro (city center or downtown). The expression barrio cerrado (translated "closed neighborhood")

165-561: A paramount chief . Complex chiefdoms have two or even three tiers of political hierarchy . Nobles are clearly distinct from commoners and do not usually engage in any form of agricultural production. The higher members of society consume most of the goods that are passed up the hierarchy as a tribute. Reciprocal obligations are fulfilled by the nobles carrying out rituals that only they can perform. They may also make token, symbolic redistributions of food and other goods. In two- or three-tiered chiefdoms, higher-ranking chiefs have control over

220-479: A resettlement policy called reductions , smaller, scattered barangays were consolidated (and thus "reduced") to form compact towns. Each barangay was headed by the cabeza de barangay (barangay chief), who formed part of the principalía , the elite ruling class of the municipalities of the Spanish Philippines. This position was inherited from the first datus and came to be known as such during

275-673: A stateless , state analogue or early state system or institution. Usually a chief's position is based on kinship , which is often monopolized by the legitimate senior members of select families or 'houses'. These elites can form a political-ideological aristocracy relative to the general group. Chiefdoms and chiefs are sometimes identified as the same as kingdoms and kings , and therefore understood as monarchies , particularly when they are understood as not necessarily states, but having monarchic representation or government. In anthropological theory , one model of human social development rooted in ideas of cultural evolution describes

330-708: A central place for the Mississippian culture of North America. Pauketat's provocation, however, has been accused of not offering a sound alternative to the chiefdom type. For while he claims that chiefdoms are a delusion, he describes Cahokia as a civilization. This has been debated to uphold rather than challenge the evolutionary scheme he contests. Chiefdoms are characterized by the centralization of authority and pervasive inequality. At least two inherited social classes ( elite and commoner ) are present. (The ancient Hawaiian chiefdoms had as many as four social classes.) An individual might change social class during

385-473: A certain type of traditional boat in many languages in the Philippines. Early Spanish dictionaries of Philippine languages make it clear that balangay was pronounced "ba-la-ngay", while today the modern barangay is pronounced "ba-rang-gay". The term referred to the people serving under a particular chief rather than to the modern meaning of an area of land, for which other words were used. While barangay

440-450: A chiefdom as a form of social organization more complex than a tribe or a band society , and less complex than a state or a civilization . Within general theories of cultural evolution, chiefdoms are characterized by permanent and institutionalized forms of political leadership (the chief ), centralized decision-making, economic interdependence, and social hierarchy. Chiefdoms are described as intermediate between tribes and states in

495-530: A chiefdom in anthropology is by Robert L. Carneiro : "An autonomous political unit comprising a number of villages or communities under the permanent control of a paramount chief" (Carneiro 1981: 45). In archaeological theory , Service's definition of chiefdoms as “redistribution societies with a permanent central agency of coordination” (Service 1962: 134) has been most influential. Many archaeologists, however, dispute Service's reliance upon redistribution as central to chiefdom societies, and point to differences in

550-406: A cluster of houses for organizational purposes, and sitios , which are territorial enclaves —usually rural —far from the barangay center. As of July 2024, there are 42,004 barangays throughout the country. When the first Spaniards arrived in the Philippines in the 16th century, they found well-organized, independent villages called barangays . The name barangay originated from balangay ,

605-717: A combination of these, but such further subdivisions, though popular and common, are unofficial In the mainland United States , the term barrio is used to refer to inner-city areas overwhelmingly inhabited by first-generation Spanish-speaking immigrant families who have not been assimilated into the mainstream American culture. Some examples of this include Spanish Harlem in New York City, East L.A. in Los Angeles; and Segundo Barrio in Houston. Some of these neighborhoods are simply referred to as just "El Barrio" by

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660-529: A complex social hierarchy consisting of kings, a warrior aristocracy, common freemen, serfs , and slaves . The Native American tribes sometimes had ruling kings or satraps (governors) in some areas and regions. The Cherokee, for example, had an imperial-family ruling system over a long period of history. The early Spanish explorers in the Americas reported on the Indian kings and kept extensive notes during what

715-438: A lifetime by extraordinary behavior. A single lineage/family of the elite class becomes the ruling elite of the chiefdom, with the greatest influence, power, and prestige. Kinship is typically an organizing principle, while marriage, age, and sex can affect one's social status and role. A single simple chiefdom is generally composed of a central community surrounded by or near a number of smaller subsidiary communities. All of

770-488: A mosaic of the various barrios , surrounding the central administrative areas. As they matured, the barrios functionally and symbolically reproduced the city and in some way tended to replicate it. The barrio reproduced the city through providing occupational, social, physical and spiritual space. With the emergence of an enlarged merchant class, some barrios were able to support a wide range of economic levels. This led to new patterns of social class distribution throughout

825-497: A number of lesser ranking individuals, each of whom controls specific territory or social units. Political control rests on the chief's ability to maintain access to a sufficiently large body of tribute, passed up the line by lesser chiefs. These lesser chiefs in turn collect from those below them, from communities close to their own center. At the apex of the status hierarchy sits the paramount . Anthropologists and archaeologists have demonstrated through research that chiefdoms are

880-541: A relatively unstable form of social organization. They are prone to cycles of collapse and renewal, in which tribal units band together, expand in power, fragment through some form of social stress, and band together again. An example of this kind of social organization were the Germanic Peoples who conquered the western Roman Empire in the 5th century CE . Although commonly referred to as tribes, anthropologists classified their society as chiefdoms. They had

935-427: A rural or urban area anywhere in the country. A 1974 decree replaced the word barrio with barangay , the basic administrative unit of government, possessing an average population of 2,500 people. Barrio , however, is still widely used interchangeably with barangay . Both may refer to rural settlements or urban municipal districts (the latter formerly known as visitas ). It is alternatively spelled as baryo , though

990-578: A type of boat used by a group of Austronesian peoples when they migrated to the Philippines. All municipalities and cities in the Philippines are politically subdivided into barangays, with the exception of the municipalities of Adams in Ilocos Norte and Kalayaan in Palawan , each containing a single barangay. Barangays are sometimes informally subdivided into smaller areas called purok (English: " zone " ), or barangay zones consisting of

1045-533: Is a Tagalog word, it spread throughout the Philippines as Spanish rule concentrated power in Manila. All citations regarding pre-colonial barangays lead to a single source, Juan de Plascencia's 1589 report Las costumbres de los indios Tagalos de Filipinas . However, historian Damon Woods challenges the concept of a barangay as an indigenous political organization primarily due to a lack of linguistic evidence. Based on indigenous language documents, Tagalogs did not use

1100-792: Is because most of the people were relying on fishing for their supply of protein and their livelihood. They also traveled mostly by water, up and down rivers and along the coasts. Trails always followed river systems, which were also a major source of water for bathing, washing, and drinking. The coastal barangays were more accessible to trade with foreigners. These were ideal places for economic activity to develop. Business with traders from other countries also meant contact with other cultures and civilizations, such as those of Japan , Han Chinese , Indians , and Arabs . These coastal communities acquired more cosmopolitan cultures with developed social structures (sovereign principalities), ruled by established royalties and nobilities. During Spanish rule , through

1155-432: Is more often used to refer to shanty towns, but the term "barrio" has a more general use. [1] In Cuba , El Salvador and Spain , the term barrio is used officially to denote a subdivision of a municipio (or municipality); each barrio is subdivided into sectors ( sectores ). In the Philippines , the term barrio may refer to a rural village, but it may also denote a self-governing community subdivision within

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1210-631: Is now called the conquest. Some of the native tribes in the Americas had princes, nobles, and various classes and castes. The " Great Sun " was somewhat like the Great Khans of Asia and eastern Europe. Much like an emperor, the Great Sun of North America is the best example of chiefdoms and imperial kings in North American Indian history. The Aztecs of Mexico had a similar culture. The Indus Valley Civilisation (3300 BCE - 1700 BCE)

1265-609: Is sometimes stopped and continued, In the absence of an SK, the council votes for a nominated Barangay Council president, and this president is not like the League of the Barangay Councilors, which is composed of barangay captains of a municipality. The Barangay Justice System, or Katarungang Pambarangay , is composed of members commonly known as the Lupon Tagapamayapa ( justice of the peace ). Their function

1320-468: Is to conciliate and mediate disputes at the barangay level to avoid legal action and relieve the courts of docket congestion. Barangay elections are non-partisan and are typically hotly contested. Barangay captains are elected by first-past-the-post plurality (no runoff voting ). Councilors are elected by plurality-at-large voting , with the entire barangay as a single at-large district. Each voter can vote for up to seven candidates for councilor, with

1375-402: Is used to describe small upper-class residential settlements planned with an exclusive criterion and often physically enclosed in walls, that is, a kind of gated community . In Colombia , the term is used to describe any urban area neighborhood whose geographical limits are determined locally. The term can be used to refer to all classes within society. The term barrio de invasión or comuna

1430-559: The Apa Tanis as their ethnographic parallel (Berezkin 1995). Frantsouzoff (2000) finds a more developed example of such type of polities in ancient South Arabia in the Wadi Hadhramawt of the 1st millennium BCE . In Southeast Asian history up to the early 19th century, the metaphysical view of the cosmos called the mandala (i.e., circle) is used to describe a Southeast Asian political model , which in turn describes

1485-827: The Cagayan River were flourishing trading centers. Some of these barangays had large populations. In Panay, some barangays had 20,000 inhabitants; in Leyte (Baybay), 15,000 inhabitants; in Cebu, 3,500 residents; in Vitis (Pampanga), 7,000 inhabitants; and in Pangasinan, 4,000 residents. There were smaller barangays with fewer people, but these were generally inland communities, or if they were coastal, they were not located in areas that were good for business pursuits. These smaller barangays had around thirty to one hundred houses only, and

1540-616: The People Power Revolution , though older people would still use the term barrio . The Municipal Council was abolished upon the transfer of powers to the barangay system. Marcos used to call the barangay part of Philippine participatory democracy, and most of his writings involving the New Society praised the role of baranganic democracy in nation-building. After the People Power Revolution and

1595-645: The Yuan , Ming , and Qing-era Chinese governments, principally in Yunnan . The arrangement is generally known as the Native Chieftain System ( Chinese : 土司 制度 ; pinyin : Tǔsī Zhìdù ). In prehistoric South-West Asia, alternatives to chiefdoms were the non-hierarchical systems of complex acephalous communities , with a pronounced autonomy of single-family households. These communities have been analyzed recently by Berezkin, who suggests

1650-673: The Spanish regime. The Spanish monarch, who also collected taxes (called tribute) from the residents for the Spanish Crown, ruled each barangay through the cabeza . When the Americans arrived , "slight changes in the structure of local government was effected". Later, Rural Councils with four councilors were created to assist, now renamed Barrio Lieutenant; they were later renamed Barrio Council and then Barangay Council ( Sangguniang Barangay ). The Spanish term barrio (abbr. Bo.)

1705-632: The barangay. The number of barangay tanods differs from one barangay to another; they help maintain law and order in the neighborhoods throughout the Philippines. Funding for the barangay comes from their share of the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA), with a portion of the allotment set aside for the Sangguniang Kabataan. The exact amount of money is determined by a formula combining the barangay's population and land area. Barrio In Argentina and Uruguay ,

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1760-459: The basis of finance ( staple finance v. wealth finance ). Service argued that chief rose to assume a managerial status to redistribute agricultural surplus to ecologically specialized communities within this territory (staple finance). Yet in re-studying the Hawaiian chiefdoms used as his case study, Timothy Earle observed that communities were rather self-sufficient. What the chief redistributed

1815-512: The city, e.g., one might make shoes, while another made cheese. Integration of daily life could also be seen in the religious sector, where a parish and a convento might serve one or more neighborhoods. The mosaic formed by the barrios and the colonial center continued until the period of independence in Mexico and Latin America . The general urban pattern was one where the old central plaza

1870-637: The city. Those who could afford to locate in and around the central plazas relocated. The poor and marginal groups still occupied the spaces at the city's edge. The desire on the part of the sector popular to replicate a barrio was expressed through the diversity of the populace and functions and the tendency to form social hierarchies and to maintain social control. The limits to replication were mainly social. Any particular barrio could not easily expand its borders into other barrios , nor could it easily export its particular social identity to others. Different barrios provided different products and services to

1925-406: The communities recognize the authority of a single kin group or individual with hereditary centralized power, dwelling in the primary community. Each community will have its own leaders, which are usually in a tributary and/or subservient relationship to the ruling elite of the primary community. A complex chiefdom is a group of simple chiefdoms controlled by a single paramount center and ruled by

1980-518: The council are the barangay captain, seven barangay councilors, and the chairman of the Youth Council, or Sangguniang Kabataan (SK). Thus, there are eight members of the legislative council in a barangay. The council is in session for a new solution or a resolution of bill votes, and if the counsels and the SK are at a tie, the barangay captain uses their vote. This only happens when the SK, which

2035-461: The diffuse patterns of political power distributed among Mueang (principalities) where circles of influence were more important than central power. The concept counteracts modern tendencies to look for unified political power like that of the large European kingdoms and nation states, which one scholar posited were an inadvertent byproduct of 15th-century advances in map-making technologies . Nikolay Kradin has demonstrated that an alternative to

2090-602: The drafting of the 1987 Constitution , the Municipal Council was restored, making the barangay the smallest unit of Philippine government. The first barangay elections held under the new constitution were held on March 28, 1989, under Republic Act No. 6679. The last barangay elections were held in October 2023 . The next elections will be held in December 2025. The modern barangay is headed by elected officials,

2145-454: The evolutionary underpinnings of the chiefdom model are weighed down by racist and outdated theoretical baggage that can be traced back to Lewis Morgan 's 19th-century cultural evolution. From this perspective, pre-state societies are treated as underdeveloped, the savage and barbaric phases that preceded civilization. Pauketat argues that the chiefdom type is a limiting category that should be abandoned, and takes as his main case study Cahokia ,

2200-543: The king or chief Togbui Ga , the Fon people Dah , the Kotafon people Ga , and Ashanti people Asantehene . Traditional authority is a distinguishing feature in the landscape of contemporary Africa. It remains important in organising the life of people at the local level despite modern state structures. Tusi ( Chinese : 土司 ), also known as Headmen or Chieftains, were tribal leaders recognized as imperial officials by

2255-540: The locals, as opposed to using their actual names (Spanish Harlem, East L.A., Segundo Barrio, etc.). In Venezuela and the Dominican Republic , the term is commonly used to describe slums in the outer rims of big cities such as Caracas and Santo Domingo as well as lower- and middle-class neighborhoods in other cities and towns. Over the centuries, selectness in the Spanish Empire evolved as

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2310-477: The population varied from 100 to 500 persons. According to Miguel López de Legazpi , he founded communities with only 20 to 30 people. Traditionally, the original "barangays" were coastal settlements formed by the migration of these Malayo-Polynesian people (who came to the archipelago) from other places in Southeast Asia ( see chiefdom ). Most of the ancient barangays were coastal or riverine. This

2365-534: The preferred spelling is the Spanish one (barrio). In the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico , the term barrio is an official government designation used to denote a subdivision of a municipio and denotes the government's lowest level and geographically smallest officially recognized administrative unit. A barrio in Puerto Rico is not vested with political authority. It may or may not be further subdivided into sectors, communities, urbanizaciones , or

2420-537: The progressive scheme of sociopolitical development formulated by Elman Service : band - tribe - chiefdom - state . A chief's status is based on kinship , so it is inherited or ascribed , in contrast to the achieved status of Big Man leaders of tribes. Another feature of chiefdoms is therefore pervasive social inequality. They are ranked societies, according to the scheme of progressive sociopolitical development formulated by Morton Fried : egalitarian - ranked - stratified - state . The most succinct definition of

2475-418: The social, cultural and functional attributes of the past. The few surviving barrios do so with a loss of traditional meaning. For most of them the word has become a descriptive category or a generic definition. Chiefdom List of forms of government A chiefdom is a political organization of people represented or governed by a chief . Chiefdoms have been discussed, depending on their scope, as

2530-470: The space needs of local craftsman and the shelter needs of the working class. At times they were designed to meet municipal norms, but they usually responded to functional requirements of the users. Barrios were built over centuries of sociocultural interaction within urban space. In Mexico and in other Latin American countries with strong heritages of colonial centers, the concept of barrio no longer contains

2585-589: The state of a king ( raja ). Also see Suhas Chatterjee, Mizo Chiefs and the Chiefdom (1995). Most African traditional societies involved chiefdoms in their political and social structure before European colonisation . For an example see the political organisation of the Mandinka people in West Africa. Each clan, tribe, kingdom, and empire had its traditional leader, king, or queen. Ewe people call

2640-497: The topmost being the barangay captain . The barangay captain is aided by the Sangguniang Barangay (Barangay Council), whose members, called barangay kagawad ("councilors"), are also elected. The barangay is often governed from its seat of local government , the barangay hall . The council is considered a local government unit (LGU), similar to the provincial and municipal governments. The officials that make up

2695-405: The winners being the seven candidates with the most votes. Typically, a ticket consists of one candidate for barangay captain and seven candidates for councilors. Elections for the post of punong barangay and the barangay kagawads are usually held every three years, starting in 2007. A barangay tanod , or barangay police officer, is an unarmed watchman who fulfills policing functions within

2750-680: The word barangay to describe themselves or their communities. Instead, barangay is argued to be a Spanish invention resulting from an attempt by the Spaniards to reconstruct pre-conquest Tagalog society. The first barangays started as relatively small communities of around 50 to 100 families. By the time of contact with the Spaniards, many barangays had developed into large communities. The encomienda of 1604 shows that many affluent and powerful coastal barangays in Sulu , Butuan , Panay , Leyte , Cebu , Pampanga , Pangasinan , Pasig , Laguna , and

2805-498: Was a hegemony of chiefdoms with supreme chiefs in each and a system of subsidiary chiefs. The ranks of the chiefs included ordinary chiefs, elders, priests or cattle-owners and head chiefs. The Arthashastra , a work on politics written some time between the 4th century BC and 2nd century AD by Indian author Chanakya , similarly describes the Rajamandala (or "Raja-mandala,") as circles of friendly and enemy states surrounding

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2860-399: Was designated for collective uses, such as farming or grazing. This practice of peripheral land expansion laid the groundwork for later suburbanization by immigrants from outside the region and by real estate agents. At the edge of Hispanic American colonial cities there were places where work, trade, social interaction and symbolic spiritual life occurred. These barrios were created to meet

2915-459: Was not staple goods, but prestige goods to his followers that helped him to maintain his authority (wealth finance). Some scholars contest the utility of the chiefdom model for archaeological inquiry. The most forceful critique comes from Timothy Pauketat , whose Chiefdom and Other Archaeological Delusions outlines how chiefdoms fail to account for the high variability of the archaeological evidence for middle-range societies. Pauketat argues that

2970-459: Was surrounded by an intermediate ring of barrios and emerging suburban areas linking the city to the hinterland. The general governance of the city was in the hands of a mayor and city councilors. Public posts were purchased and funds given to the local government and the royal bureaucracy. Fairness and equity were not high on the list of public interests. Lands located on the periphery were given to individuals by local authorities, even if this land

3025-405: Was used for much of the 20th century. Manila mayor Ramon Bagatsing established the first Barangay Bureau in the Philippines, creating the blueprint for the barangay system as the basic socio-political unit for the city in the early 1970s. This was quickly replicated by the national government, and in 1974, President Ferdinand Marcos ordered the renaming of barrios to barangays. The name survived

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