Also known as: Amihanan nga Leyte, Tandaya
Leyte is a province in Region VIII (Eastern Visayas). Population 1.82M (PSA 2024 census), 1 component city + 40 municipalities, 1,393 barangays total, land area 6,313.33 km². Provincial capital: Tacloban City (Highly Urbanized — independent).
Leyte is a province in Region VIII (Eastern Visayas). Its capital is Tacloban City (Highly Urbanized — independent).
Leyte had 1,823,458 residents in the 2024 census (PSA 2024 Census of Population (POPCEN 2024), reference date July 1, 2024). That is the most recent official count. There is no 2026 census result, so any 2026 population figure is an estimate.
Leyte covers 6,313.33 km², per the PSA Philippine Statistical Yearbook figure used on this page.
Leyte has 1 component city and 40 municipalities (41 LGUs under the province), per PSA's Philippine Standard Geographic Code (2Q 2026), and 1,393 barangays. Tacloban City (a highly urbanized city) and Ormoc City (an independent component city) are also in Leyte, outside the province's supervision, so they are not counted above; counting them, there are 3 cities in all.
Leyte's 1 component city is Baybay City. Its 40 municipalities are Abuyog, Alangalang, Albuera, Babatngon, Barugo, Bato, Burauen, Calubian, Capoocan, Carigara, Dagami, Dulag, Hilongos, Hindang, Inopacan, Isabel, Jaro, Javier, Julita, Kananga, La Paz, Leyte, Macarthur, Mahaplag, Matag-ob, Matalom, Mayorga, Merida, Palo, Palompon, Pastrana, San Isidro, San Miguel, Santa Fe, Tabango, Tabontabon, Tanauan, Tolosa, Tunga and Villaba. Tacloban City (a highly urbanized city) and Ormoc City (an independent component city) are also in Leyte, outside the province's supervision, so they are not counted above; counting them, there are 3 cities in all.
Leyte's provincial capital, Tacloban City, has been a Highly Urbanized City — administratively independent of the province — since a 2008 plebiscite, the same arrangement Cebu City has with Cebu province. The 41 LGUs the province actually coordinates (Baybay City and 40 municipalities) sit alongside two more cities that complicate any simple count: Ormoc, an independent component city since 1947 whose voters can't vote for provincial officials but whose population and land area are still statistically grouped under the province, and Tacloban itself, excluded from provincial totals entirely. Getting that distinction right matters for modeling Leyte's actual planning-coordination footprint.
The defining fact of modern Leyte planning is Typhoon Haiyan — Yolanda, in PAGASA's naming — which made landfall on November 8, 2013, and produced a storm surge that killed an estimated 6,300 people nationally, with roughly 92% of that toll concentrated in Leyte province and Tacloban alone. DENR's subsequent 40-meter coastal no-build zone created real, well-documented coordination friction: residents in Tacloban's Barangay Anibong rebuilt inside the hazard zone rather than relocate, and neighboring Palo and Tanauan were still working to relocate well over a thousand families combined more than a year after the storm. Any CLUP covering Leyte's coastal municipalities has to work within that resettlement history.
Leyte also sits on active fault lines. The Philippine Fault Zone's Leyte Segment produced a magnitude 6.5 earthquake in 2017, and PHIVOLCS has separately flagged the Central Leyte Fault — dormant for over a century, running from Burauen to Saint Bernard in Southern Leyte — as capable of a magnitude 7.1 rupture. Economically, the province combines coconut and abaca farming, rice and corn agriculture, and one of the country's largest geothermal energy complexes at Tongonan in Kananga, alongside Ormoc's role as the commercial hub for western Leyte and Tacloban's role as the region's government and commercial center. The San Juanico Bridge connecting Leyte to Samar — with a second bridge now in feasibility study — adds a cross-provincial growth dimension on top of the disaster-recovery and seismic-hazard planning the province's 41 LGUs already coordinate.
Key industries: Coconut + copra production, Abaca (Manila hemp), Rice and corn farming, Geothermal energy (Tongonan, Kananga), Fisheries
More on the regulatory framework: CLUP explainer · RA 7160 explainer · SGLG explainer · full glossary. Working a CLUP review cycle? Run the CLUP readiness self-check or see CLUP compliance monitoring.
Leyte's provincial planning office coordinates CLUP submissions from 41 LGUs still working through post-Yolanda coastal resettlement and no-build-zone decisions, on top of a Central Leyte Fault that PHIVOLCS has flagged as overdue for a major rupture — all while Tacloban, the capital, runs its own planning process independently as an HUC. Nova Gov's pilot program is designed to help a provincial team keep one consistent picture of CLUP status across that fragmented LGU landscape instead of piecing it together city hall by city hall.
Leyte's 41 LGUs are still coordinating coastal no-build zones, seismic hazard planning, and everyday CLUP work — separately from Tacloban City's own independent planning process. See how Nova Gov's pilot program approaches multi-LGU CLUP coordination.
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