General Santos

About General Santos

General Santos, officially the City of General Santos and abbreviated as GenSan, is a highly urbanized city in the Soccsksargen region of the Philippines. It has a population of 722,059 people according to the 2024 census, making it the most populous city in Soccsksargen Region.

It is located on the island of Mindanao, and is the southernmost and 13th-most populous city in the Philippines. It is the regional center for commerce and industry in the Soccsksargen region. It is the largest and the only coastal city in the province of South Cotabato wherein it is geographically situated and grouped under the province by the Philippine Statistics Authority but administered independently of it.

General Santos was severely affected by the 2026 Mindanao earthquake.

The city was named after General Paulino Santos, a Commanding General of the Philippine Army and the settlement's leading pioneer.

The nomadic Blaan people are the original inhabitants of present-day General Santos, and traces of their early settlements of the area are found in the city's place names, which are derived from their vocabulary. Their name for the city, Dadiangas, is from the Ziziphus spina...

Overview adapted from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA. Photography via Wikimedia Commons.