History of Bulacan

The province's name is derived from the Tagalog word "bulak" meaning cotton, which was its former principal product.

Bulacan started with small fishing settlements along the coast of Manila Bay, and expanded into the interior with the coming of the Spaniards in the 16th century. These settlements formed the nucleus of towns that were founded from 1572 (Bulacan and Calumpit) to 1750 (San Rafael). In 1848, the town of San Miguel was annexed to Bulacan from Pampanga.


A session of the Malolos Congress at Barasoain Church. Bulacan was one of the first eight provinces to rise against Spanish rule in the Philippine Revolution. The first phase of the revolution ended with the signing of the Pact of Biak-na-Bato in San Miguel in 1897 between the Filipinos and the Spaniards, after which the revolutionary leader Emilio Aguinaldo was exiled to Hong Kong. The second phase saw the drafting of the constitution of the First Philippine Republic by the Malolos Congress at Barasoain Church in 1898. The subsequently established republic had its capital at Malolos until President Emilio Aguinaldo transferred it to San Isidro, Nueva Ecija in 1899 when the Philippine-American War broke out.

When the Americans established a civil government in the Philippines, they held the first election in the country in the town of Baliuag, Bulacan on May 6, 1899.

Notable Filipino figures from Bulacan include Francisco Baltazar (Balagtas), Marcelo H. Del Pilar, and Gregorio del Pilar.