Philippines

Philippines stamps, available worldwide at Io Collezionista. Setting Singapore aside, the Philippines, an archipelago of more than 7000 islands with a population of about 100 million, is the only state in South East Asia without land borders with its neighbours. The first contact with the West dates to 1521, the year the explorer Ferdinand Magellan landed on the island of Homonhon. The name was settled instead by Ruy Lopez de Villalobos, the Spanish explorer who travelled to the archipelago between 1542 and 1546: before it was extended to the whole country, the word Philippines, in honour of Prince Philip, later king from 1556 to 1598, referred only to the islands of Samar and Leyte.