Guagua

Guagua is a first-class municipality in the province of Pampanga, Philippines. According to the 2010 census, it has a population of 111,199 people.The town of Guagua belongs to the Second District of Pampanga, along with the towns in the south-western part of the province. It is from the capital city of San Fernando and from Metro Manila. The town is bounded on the north by the towns of Bacolor and Sta. Rita; on the south by the towns of Sasmuan and Lubao; on the east, Macabebe and Sasmuan; and on the west, Porac and Floridablanca.HistoryWawa, which means "river mouth", was the earliest recorded form of the town's name according to records dating back to 1590. The town is strategically located along a river which played a vital role in trade and transportation during the precolonial era.Wawa was already a prosperous settlement when Spanish colonists took control of the town in the year 1561, from then on calling it Guagua, which is a Hispanised form of the original name. Indeed, archeological artifacts have been excavated in a nearby town which affirmed the existence of a prehistoric community in Guagua.Early inhabitants opted to stay in the town because it was here that they could engage in barter trade with people from different islands, along with other means of livelihood like fishing and farming. The navigable river with which the town was endowed allowed shipping vessels to transport commodities to and from other chief localities, particularly the imperial Manila. The first cargo boat to arrive in Guagua was the Doña Dominga on 7 May 1884. Much later it was followed by the steamships Kaibigan and Kababayan, which anchored at the pier in Bgy Santo Niño, better known as the Yañgco Landing.