Region V · Philippines
Six provinces, seven cities, 107 municipalities and 3,471 barangays on the southeastern tail of Luzon, plus two island provinces. Home to about 6,064,426 people, a live volcano, and the country’s most storm-exposed coastline.
The six provinces
Every figure below is from the PSA Philippine Standard Geographic Code, 2Q 2026. Click through for the LGUs inside each province.
Naga is not in the count above the way you might expect. It is a highly urbanised city, independent of Camarines Sur for administration, which is why it appears as its own entry across this site rather than under its province.
The region itself
Geography first, because in Bicol geography decides almost everything else: the food, the language spread, the storm exposure, and where the public money goes.
Bicol is the long tail of Luzon, a peninsula narrow enough that few places in it sit far from the sea, plus the island province of Catanduanes off the east coast and Masbate to the south. That geography explains most of the region: the fishing, the ferry routes, the exposure to storms coming off the Pacific, and why a road closure in one municipality can cut off several others.
Mayon dominates Albay physically and culturally, and it is the reason a large part of the region lives with a permanent danger zone and an evacuation plan. PHIVOLCS keeps it under continuous watch. When the alert level moves, it moves the lives of the barangays on its slopes first, which is why the alert sits in this site’s top bar rather than buried on a page.
The region sits in the path of storms crossing from the Pacific, and that shapes public spending here more than anywhere else in the country. It is the reason flood control is the largest infrastructure line item in Bicol, and the reason this portal tracks those projects municipality by municipality.
Bikol is not one language. Central Bikol is the most widely spoken, but the region carries several distinct Bikol languages plus Rinconada, Masbateño and Sorsoganon, and in practice a person from Naga and a person from Sorsogon may not fully understand each other. Government forms are usually in Filipino or English.
Bicolano cooking is built on coconut milk and chilli, which sets it apart from most Philippine regional cuisines. Bicol Express and laing are the two dishes that travelled, but pinangat, kinunot and the sili ice cream in Naga are the ones people come for. Pili nuts are the region’s signature export crop.
The Peñafrancia festival in Naga is the largest Marian devotion in the country and moves hundreds of thousands of people through the city every September. Ibalong in Legazpi and Magayon in Albay follow the same pattern: the fiesta calendar is the clearest guide to when a town is busiest, most expensive and most worth visiting.