Mount Banahaw at sunset, seen from Tayabas, Quezon
Photo: Patrickroque01 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Map

Quezon

CALABARZON
Luzon
Capital Lucena City
Population (2024) 2,260,669
Area 9,070 km²
Municipalities 39
Cities 2
Island Group Luzon
Languages Tagalog, Filipino

Population: 2024 census (PSA). Area: land area. Population, area and city count include Lucena, which the census lists separately from the province.

Kapitbahay — Neighboring Provinces
Aurora Batangas Bulacan Camarines Norte Camarines Sur Laguna Rizal

Quezon is one of the largest provinces in Luzon, stretching from the southern edge of Laguna province to the Bondoc Peninsula in the south and along the Sierra Madre range facing the Pacific. It is named after Manuel L. Quezon, the first President of the Philippine Commonwealth. The province is one of the country's leading coconut producers, nicknamed Cocolandia, and the coconut has shaped its landscape—endless rows of coconut palms visible from any road through the lowlands.

Lucena CityCapital
9,070 km²Area
39 + 2 citiesMunicipalities
LuzonIsland Group
CALABARZON (IV-A)Region

Coconut Country

The coconut is not a single product in Quezon—it is copra, coconut oil, coconut milk, coco coir, vinegar, lambanog (coconut wine), and timber. The coconut economy sustained the province through the 20th century and remains central to the livelihoods of farming families. The Quezon Protected Landscape, in the southern Sierra Madre where Luzon is narrowest, protects 938 hectares of lowland rainforest on limestone, home to hornbills, monitor lizards and many forest birds.

★
Pahiyas Festival of Lucban

The Pahiyas Festival, held in Lucban on May 15 (feast of San Isidro Labrador), involves decorating house facades with kiping—thin, leaf-shaped wafers made from colored rice dough. The festival is one of the Philippines' most visually distinctive harvest celebrations and draws visitors from Manila and abroad.

The 2024 census counted 1,980,338 people in Quezon province outside Lucena, and 2,260,669 with the city of Lucena, the capital, which the census counts separately as a highly urbanized city. Quezon is the largest province of Calabarzon and the eighth largest in the country, covering most of the isthmus that joins the Bicol Peninsula to the rest of Luzon, plus Alabat Island and the Polillo Islands in the Pacific. Its highest point is Mount Banahaw, an active volcano of about 2,170 meters. About 90 percent of the people are Tagalog, and the province is nicknamed Cocolandia for its coconut farms.

The territory that became Quezon province was originally part of the Tagalog heartland of Luzon. The area around Lucena was known as Tayabas under the Spanish—a name the province kept until 7 September 1946, when Republic Act No. 14 renamed it Quezon in honor of the late president. During the Philippine-American War, insurgents from Laguna and Batangas often used Tayabas as a base and source of supplies.

1591

Province of Kalilayan

Governor General Gómez Pérez Dasmariñas created the province, named Kaliraya or Kalilayan after its capital town, which later became Unisan.

1604

Moro Raid on Kalilayan

A large fleet of Moro raiders destroyed Kalilayan, and its people moved to Palsabangon, now Pagbilao. Raids from Jolo and Brunei were common along the coast through the 1600s.

1749

Capital Moves to Tayabas

The capital was moved to the town of Tayabas, which gave the province its new name.

24 June – 13 August 1898

Siege of Tayabas

During the Philippine Revolution, forces under General Miguel Malvar besieged the Spanish garrison holding the massive church and convent of Tayabas for nearly three months, until it surrendered unconditionally.

23 December 1941

Japanese Landing at Atimonan

The Japanese occupation of the province began with landings at Atimonan. Filipino and American forces reached Lucena on 4 April 1945, liberating the province.

7 September 1946

Renamed Quezon

Republic Act No. 14 renamed Tayabas as Quezon, after President Manuel L. Quezon of Baler, who had been elected governor of Tayabas in 1906.

1951–1979

Aurora Separates

In June 1951 the northern towns, including Baler and Casiguran, became the sub-province of Aurora, named after Quezon's wife Aurora Quezon. Aurora became a separate province in 1979.

MQ

Manuel L. Quezon

First President of the Philippine Commonwealth1878–1944

Born in Baler (now Aurora province, which was separated from Quezon), Quezon led the Nacionalista Party and negotiated the Tydings-McDuffie Act that set the Philippines on the path to independence. He served as Commonwealth President from 1935 until his death in exile in the United States in 1944, having fled the Japanese occupation. He is honored on the 20-peso bill.

Quezon's culture is fundamentally Tagalog—the language, the religious calendar, the food traditions, and the social structures are those of lowland Catholic Luzon. What distinguishes the province is the depth of its rural character and the specific artisanal traditions that have developed around the coconut economy and the local food products that Quezon exports to Manila.

Crafts and Festivals

Lucban's Pahiyas Festival is the best-known cultural event in Quezon, but every municipality has its own patron saint fiesta with particular food traditions. Tayabas City has the Minor Basilica of St. Michael the Archangel, enlarged in the mid-1850s and considered the longest church in the country. The tradition of lambanog production—distilled coconut wine—is concentrated in Tayabas and nearby towns and has developed into a cottage industry that supplies specialty shops in Manila.

★
Kiping: Edible Art

Kiping is made from rice dough pressed into leaf molds and colored with food dye, then dried and fried until translucent and crisp. During Pahiyas, kiping are strung into elaborate curtains and mobiles that decorate house facades. After the festival, they are eaten or sold as snacks.

The Bondoc Peninsula, a remote finger of land jutting south into the Sibuyan Sea, has a distinct character from the rest of the province—more isolated, more dependent on fishing and small-scale farming, with fewer connections to Manila's consumer economy. Communities there retain practices that have changed more slowly than those closer to Lucena City.

See the great festivals in Pista ng Pilipinas →

Quezon's food heritage is extensive and specific. The province produces distinctive regional items—Lucban longganisa, lambanog, pancit habhab—that are recognized nationally. The combination of Sierra Madre forest products, Pacific seafood, and the coconut economy gives Quezon a food larder that is broader than most provinces of its size.

Lucban Longganisa

A distinctive garlicky, sour sausage made with pork, vinegar, and liberal amounts of garlic and oregano. Lucban longganisa is smaller in diameter than most Filipino longganisa and has an assertive herbal flavor from dried oregano—not common in other regional sausages. It is sold fresh or dried and is a standard Lucban pasalubong.

Pancit Habhab

Pancit (noodles) cooked with vegetables and meat, served on a banana leaf without a plate. The 'habhab' name refers to eating it directly from the leaf by lifting and eating without utensils—a practical festival food. A Lucban specialty, sold by street vendors during the Pahiyas Festival and year-round.

Lambanog Cocktail with Coconut Water

Quezon Province
5 minutesPrep
0 minutesCook
2Serves
Ingredients
  • 60 ml (2 shots)lambanog (coconut vodka)
  • 200 mlfresh coconut water
  • 30 ml (3–4 fruits)calamansi juice
  • 15 ml, or to tastesugar syrup
  • to fill glassice
Method
  1. Fill two glasses with ice.
  2. Combine lambanog, coconut water, calamansi juice, and sugar syrup in a shaker.
  3. Shake briefly and strain over ice.
  4. Serve immediately.
Cook's note

Lambanog is distilled from tuba (fermented coconut sap) and is typically 80–90 proof. The quality of Quezon lambanog varies by producer—look for Tayabas-made lambanog, as the city calls itself the home of the finest lambanog. Fresh coconut water is essential; carton coconut water is a poor substitute.

Tagalog is the dominant language of Quezon province, spoken by virtually the entire lowland population. The Tagalog of Quezon—particularly in the older towns of Lucban, Tayabas, and Sariaya—retains features of classical Tagalog that have been smoothed out in the Metro Manila standard. Quezon Tagalog speakers are sometimes distinguished by a particular accent and vocabulary.

TagalogPrimary
Classical features retained in older townsCharacter
Bicol (in southern municipalities)Also spoken
★
Tagalog Heartland

Tayabas, the old name for Quezon, was historically considered part of the Tagalog core territory. The towns of Tayabas and Lucban preserve Tagalog vocabulary and pronunciations that have largely disappeared from Manila speech. Folklorists have recorded oral traditions in these towns that link to pre-colonial Tagalog culture.

Most of Quezon speaks Tayabas Tagalog, or Tayabasin, a dialect often thought of as among the most genuine Tagalog for its traditional words and expressions. Rural speakers use a deeper, older form than people in the town centers, and many of its terms are not in the Filipino dictionary or have different meanings there. Besides Tagalog, the province has the Hatang Kayi language in the north, Manide in the east, Umiray Dumaget in the north and center, and Inagta Alabat on Alabat Island, which is critically endangered: its youngest speakers are grandparents. The Katabangan language of the south is already extinct.

2.5–3 hours by bus to Lucena (via STAR Tollway)From Manila
Lucena Grand Central Terminal (JAC Liner, Philtranco)Main terminal
May 15 in LucbanPahiyas Festival
November to MayBest months

Places to Visit

Lucban and the Pahiyas Festival Route

Lucban is a well-preserved mountain town with colonial-era architecture, a large church plaza, and a thriving market. Even outside of the May festival, the town is worth visiting for its food—longganisa, pancit habhab, kiping—and its intact heritage street network. The road from Lucena climbs through coconut farms onto the slopes of Mount Banahaw.

Quezon Protected Landscape

First declared Quezon National Park in 1934, this 938-hectare park spans Pagbilao, Padre Burgos and Atimonan, about 164 kilometers southeast of Manila. The Pan-Philippine Highway runs through it on a zigzag road. Trails lead to Mount Mirador, also called Pinagbanderahan for the flags raised on its summit, and to the 80-meter Bantakay Falls and nearby caves. Bird watchers come for hornbills and other forest birds.

Tayabas Basilica of Saint Michael

The Minor Basilica of St. Michael the Archangel, enlarged in the mid-1850s, is considered the longest church in the Philippines; in 1898 its Spanish garrison held out for nearly three months against Miguel Malvar's forces. Tayabas also has more than twenty Spanish-era stone bridges, among them Malagonlong, and celebrates the Mayohan sa Tayabas harvest festival every May.

✦
Pahiyas Festival Logistics

Lucban is packed on May 15. Most visitors arrive by private vehicle or chartered bus from Manila or Lucena. Parking is managed outside town with shuttle service in. The best views of the kiping decorations are in the morning before the afternoon rains. Book accommodation in Lucban months in advance if planning to stay overnight.

Quezon's forests climb from the coconut lowlands to two very different mountains. In the west, Mount Banahaw and Mount San Cristobal are protected in the 10,901-hectare Mounts Banahaw–San Cristobal Protected Landscape. Banahaw is a sacred mountain to many, with springs and caves revered as puestos, and its forests are home to four rodents found nowhere else: the Banahaw tree mouse, Banahaw tweezer-beaked rat, Banahaw forest mouse and Banahaw lowland forest mouse. In the east, the Quezon Protected Landscape covers 938 hectares of lowland rainforest on limestone in the southern Sierra Madre, where birdwatchers can find the rufous and Luzon hornbills, pink-bellied imperial pigeons, colasisi parrots and flaming sunbirds, along with monitor lizards and wild pigs. The lowland forests of southern Luzon and Polillo are also the home of Gray's monitor, a fruit-eating lizard.

Gray's Monitor (Butaan)
Varanus olivaceus
Vulnerable
A large monitor lizard, up to 1.8 meters long, known only from lowland dipterocarp forest in southern Luzon, Catanduanes and Polillo Island. Unlike most monitors it eats mainly fruit, and it spends most of its life in the trees.
Field note: It is threatened by forest loss, hunting for food and illegal collection for the pet trade; never buy wild-caught reptiles.
A rufous hornbill (photographed at Ninoy Aquino Parks & Wildlife Center, Quezon City)
Photo: Ramon FVelasquez · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Rufous Hornbill (Kalaw)
Buceros hydrocorax
Vulnerable
The largest Philippine hornbill, with a huge red bill and casque, it is among the birds recorded in the Quezon Protected Landscape. Hornbills need large old trees with hollows for nesting, so they disappear when forests are logged.
Field note: Go with a local guide and keep to trails when birdwatching on the Sierra Madre.
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Kasaysayan · Baler

Manuel L. Quezon

LBy Lemcon Field Team, Lemcon✓ Fact-checked

Manuel Luis Quezon was born on 19 August 1878 in Baler, then part of Tayabas province and today the capital of Aurora. He studied at the Colegio de San Juan de Letran and law at the University of Santo Tomas.

He first joined the revolution under Emilio Aguinaldo, then surrendered to American forces in 1900. He turned to law, and in 1906 was elected governor of Tayabas, the start of his political career. He helped lead the Nacionalista Party and served as President of the Senate for nineteen years.

In 1935 he became the first President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines. He pushed a social justice program, and under him Filipino, based on Tagalog, was set as the national language, a lasting mark on national identity.

His second term was broken by the Second World War. He led a government-in-exile in the United States and died there of tuberculosis on 1 August 1944, at Saranac Lake, New York. The province of Quezon carries his name.

Mga Larawan

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Lugar · Dolores

Mount San Cristobal, the Devil's Mountain

LBy Lemcon Field Team, Lemcon✓ Fact-checked

Mount San Cristobal rises to 1,470 meters on the border of Laguna and Quezon, with the easiest climb starting from Dolores, Quezon. It is a stratovolcano and part of the Mount Banahaw complex, within the Mounts Banahaw and San Cristobal Protected Landscape of about 10,901 hectares.

In folklore it is the Devil's Mountain, the dark twin of the holy Mount Banahaw. Where Banahaw is said to hold good energy, San Cristobal is said to hold the opposite. Local legend tells of the Tumao, a shape-shifting guardian of the mountain, and warns those who harm its forests.

Beliefs aside, it is a protected forest and a demanding climb. Follow the trails, respect the mountain, and check with local guides before you go.

Mga Larawan

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Lugar · Infanta

The Foggy Side of Infanta

LBy Lemcon Field Team, Lemcon✓ Fact-checked

Back in 2010 I found a side of Infanta, Quezon that felt like Sagada or Baguio, cool and wrapped in fog.

The mountains here hide waterfalls, one after another. It is a long drive from Manila, but the scene at the end is worth it, a quiet beauty you would not expect was waiting there. My photos are low resolution, taken on an old phone.

Mga Larawan

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Pagkain · Quezon

Kalamay of Quezon

CBy Catherine Rufo, Lemcon✓ Fact-checked

Kalamay is one of the best-loved delicacies in the Philippines. It is a sticky rice cake, and every province and every family makes it a little differently.

In our family in Quezon, kalamay belongs to Christmas. Every 24th of December we prepare it together with our relatives and our ka-barangay. We make it from glutinous rice, fresh coconut milk, and muscovado sugar, with a family recipe we keep to ourselves.

The cooking takes patience. The mixture needs slow, steady stirring over the fire until it thickens, so the whole family gathers around the pot while it cooks. Making the kalamay becomes its own tradition, as much a part of the day as the eating.

Mga Larawan

Sources · updated 4 October 2026
Photo credits (2)

Photos from Wikimedia Commons, used under the licences shown; some were resized. All photo credits

Panahon ng Hapon · 3 moments in Quezon
Festivals
Pahiyas Festival
Animals · Hayop ng Pilipinas
Rufous HornbillGray's Monitor Lizard
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