The third biggest province in the whole Philippine Archipelago, Pangasinan derived its name from salt or “asin” in the vernacular. Owing to the rich and fine salt beds which were the prime source of livelihood for the province’s coastal towns, PanagASINan or “Pangasinan” which means “where salt is made” came to be its name.
The province is crescent-shaped and occupies 536,818 hectares of land area which constitutes almost one-half (41.8%) of the total land area of Region 1 and 1.8% of the total area of the Philippines. Composed of 4 cities and 44 municipalities, it is bounded on the north by the Lingayen Gulf, La Union and Benguet, on the north-east by Nueva Vizcaya, on the east by Nueva Ecija, on the south by Tarlac, and on the west by Zambales and the China Sea. (About Pangasinan)
Based from the 2020 census of population, Pangasinan registered a total population of 3,163,190 and ranks sixth most populated province in the country. Among the four (4) cities and forty-four (44) municipalities of Pangasinan, San Carlos City had the largest population with 205,424 persons. This is followed by Dagupan City with 174,302, the City of Urdaneta with 144,577, and the municipalities of Malasiqui with 143,094 and Bayambang with 129,011 number of persons.