Vigan City Solidarity Celebration

Another great time to visit Vigan is during their World Heritage Cities Solidarity Day celebration every September. Vigan celebrate this wth other cities all over the world that have world heritage sites.
In Vigan this special day is actually commemorated with week-long festivities aimed at strengthening pride in the history and culture of Vigan. This aim is in keeping with the long-term goal of preserving the 630 heritage structures that date back from the 18th and 19th century. Vigan’s well preserved Spanish trading town environ has survived the test of time, including bombings during world War II.
Vigan is an island, which used to be detached from the mainland by three rivers, the great Abra River, the Mestizo River and the Govantes River. It is unique among the Philippine towns because it is the country’s most extensive and only surviving historic city that dates back to the 16th century Spanish colonial period.
Vigan was an important coastal trading post in precolonial times. Long before the Spanish galleons, Chinese junks sailing from the South China Sea came to Isla de Bigan through the Mestizo River that surrounded the island. On board were sea-faring merchants that came to barter exotic goods from Asian kingdoms in exchange for gold, beeswax and other mountain products brought down by natives from Cordilleras. Immigrants, mostly Chinese, settled in Vigan, intermarried with the natives and started the multicultural bloodline of the Biguenos.