A
barangay (
Brgy. or
Bgy.;
Filipino:
baranggay, ; also pronounced the same in Spanish), formerly called
barrio, is the smallest
administrative division in the
Philippines and is the native Filipino term for a
village,
district or
ward. In colloquial usage, the term often refers to an
inner city neighbourhood, a
suburb or a suburban neighborhood. The word
barangay originated from
balangay, a kind of boat used by a group of
Austronesian peoples when they migrated to the Philippines.
Municipalities and
cities are composed of barangays, and they may be further subdivided into smaller areas called
puroks (
English: ), barangay zones consisting of a cluster of houses, and
sitios, which are territorial
enclaves—usually
rural—far from the barangay center. , there were now 42,029 barangays throughout the Philippines.