- This article is about a province in Philippines. For the ancient Indian kingdom, see Kalinga (India). For other uses, see Kalinga (disambiguation).
Kalinga is a landlocked province of the Philippines in the Cordillera Administrative Region in Luzon. Its capital is Tabuk and borders Mountain Province to the south, Abra to the west, Isabela to the east, Cagayan to the northeast, and Apayao to the north. Prior to 1995, Kalinga and Apayao used to be a single province named Kalinga-Apayao, until they were split into two to better service the needs of individual native tribes in the provinces.
|Region||Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR)|
|Area|| 3,119.7 km²|
|Total (2000)|| 174,023|
People and culture
Wheat and rice farming
- Tabuk City (still to undergo plebiscite)
It is said that in the Ibanag and Gaddang languages, Kalinga comes from the common noun “kalinga” which means “enemy”, “fighter”, or “headhunter”. The inhabitants of Cagayan and Isabela considered the Kalinga as enemies since they conducted headhunting attacks on Ibanag and Gaddang territories. As such, the name is considered a misnomer since it has no geographic or ethnic basis. Yet the term has become the official ethnic name accepted even by the natives themselves.
There are may sub tribes in the province. The strong sense of tribal membership and filial loyalty results to occasional tribal war. The Kalingas were able to maintain their culture despite the occupation of the Spaniards, Japanese and Americans due to the mountainous terrain and warrior-culture of the people. Unknown to many, the last stand of President Emilio Aguinaldo (First President of the Philippines) was in this province, in the municipality of Lubuagan commemorated by the Aguinaldo museum in the said municipality.