Meycauayan, Bulacan
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Meycauayan is a 1st class urban municipality in the province of Bulacan, Philippines. The town is located about 19 km north of Manila and about 22 km south of Malolos City, the capital city of Bulacan. It is bounded by the town of Marilao to the north, Valenzuela City to the south, Caloocan City to the east, and the town of Obando to the west. It encompasses an aggregate area of 32.1 square kilometres, representing 1.17% of the total land area of the province of Bulacan. According to the 2000 census, it has a population of 175,291 people in 34,882 households.
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Meycauayan is known for its jewelry and tanning industry. It is also home to several industrial parks, most of it located at Barangays Iba, Camalig and Pantoc.
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Barangays
Meycauayan is politically subdivided into 26 barangays.
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Geography
Meycauayan is generally surrounded with plain land and gentle rolling hills. Comfortably above sea level, this terrain is an interweaving of greenery and concrete road network. The slope of the land dips towards a west to north westerly direction. River, natural lake and drainage waterways envelope and criss-cross the area.
History
The name of Meycauayan came from the Tagalog may kawayan (lit. "a place full of bamboos") alluding to the presence of large bamboo groves in the town. It was founded in 1578 by the Franciscan Catholic missionaries. Local tradition names friars Juan de Placencia and Diego Oropesa as the parish and town's founding fathers, who constructed the first church made up of nipa thatch and bamboos which they dedicated to their Nuestro Padre Senor San Francisco de Asis, in what is now Barangay Bahay Pari.
Because the newly erected town constantly attracts the attention of native Aetas, the town was transferred to Barangay Malhacan. The town later transferred to a location known as Lagolo (located somewhere between Barangays Banga and Caingin). Lagolo proved inhospitable at the time, so the town center again transferred to what is now known as Barangay Poblacion, where the Parish Church of St. Francis of Assisi still stands.
Meycauayan was then one of the largest municipalities in Bulacan. The towns of San Jose Del Monte, Bocaue, Marilao, Valenzuela, Obando, Santa Maria and Pandi were once part of the political jurisdiction of the town. During the Spanish colonization in the Philippines, the Spanish authorities tapped Meycauayan's adobe (volcanic tuff rocks) reserves which were used for building stone houses and fortifications in and out of town. Majority of the adobe rocks that were used in building the walls of Intramuros, Manila's "old walled city", were imported from Meycauayan.
In April 4,1949, a large fire razed the town, destroying its market center and its centuries-old church. It took years to recover from the destruction, aided by the provincial and national governments as well as by the contributions of its own citizens.
On March 5, 2001, the municipality was declared as a component city by virtue of Republic Act 9021, but was rejected by the voting people of Meycauayan in a referendum.
In 2005, the municipal town hall was moved from Barangay Poblacion to a newer structure in Barangay Camalig. The former municipal town hall now houses the Mariano Quinto Alarilla Polytechnic College.