Also known as: Lalawigan ti Mountain Province
Mountain Province is a province in Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR). Population 150K (PSA 2024 census), 0 cities + 10 municipalities, 144 barangays total, land area 2,157.38 km². Provincial capital: Bontoc.
Mountain Province is a province in Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR). Its capital is Bontoc.
Mountain Province had 149,775 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.
Mountain Province covers 2,157.38 km², per the PSA Philippine Statistical Yearbook figure used on this page.
Mountain Province has 0 component cities and 10 municipalities (10 LGUs under the province), per PSA's Philippine Standard Geographic Code (2Q 2026), and 144 barangays.
Mountain Province has no component cities. Its 10 municipalities are Barlig, Bauko, Besao, Bontoc, Natonin, Paracelis, Sabangan, Sadanga, Sagada and Tadian.
The modern, smaller Mountain Province was created on June 18, 1966 by Republic Act No. 4695 — the same law that split the old, much larger American-era 'Mountain Province' into Benguet, Ifugao, Kalinga-Apayao, and this redefined, smaller entity. It should not be confused with that earlier, defunct province despite sharing a name.
Key industries: Highland agriculture (vegetables, Arabica coffee), Tourism (Sagada), Weaving and traditional crafts
Sagada, its best-known municipality, practices a living Indigenous tradition of hanging coffins among the Kankanaey people, and has become a genuine over-tourism case study: single-day visitor arrivals have reportedly exceeded 8,000 against a resident population near 11,000, prompting visitor caps, mandatory registered guides, and a DENR-assisted carrying-capacity study. Two of the four dams proposed in the 1970s-80s Chico River hydroelectric project — ultimately abandoned after nationwide outrage over the 1980 killing of Kalinga resistance leader Macli-ing Dulag — would have been sited within Mountain Province territory. The Maligcong and Bayyo rice terraces in Bontoc are a distinct terrace system seeking their own heritage recognition, separate from Ifugao's UNESCO-inscribed terraces.
Key industries: Highland agriculture (vegetables, Arabica coffee), Tourism (Sagada), Weaving and traditional crafts
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.
A province managing a genuine over-tourism crisis in one of its own municipalities, alongside a decades-old land-use legacy from a shelved hydroelectric mega-project, is exactly the kind of layered planning demand a live cross-LGU dashboard is built to help a PPDO track across all 10 municipalities.
With visitor numbers straining a single municipality's infrastructure, Mountain Province's PPDO needs live visibility into carrying-capacity compliance alongside CLUP and SGLG status. A Nova Gov pilot brings all of it into one view across all 10 municipalities.
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