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East Asia · Ming, Joseon, Ryukyu and the later steppe

Maynila

c. 1500–1571

Maynila (Selurong/Seludong; c. 1500–1571) was a fortified Tagalog-Muslim polity at the mouth of the Pasig River (site of modern Manila), a Bruneian satellite/trading colony. Its paramount rulers held the Malay title "Raja"; leaders included Salalila (c. 1500s–c. 1521), Ache (Rajah Matanda, "the Old King," r. c. 1521–1572)—who as a young prince married a Brunei princess in 1521 and served as grand admiral for the Sultan of Brunei—and his nephew Rajah Sulayman.

Existed
c. 1500–1571
Shown on the map
1521–1599
Peak area
4k km²
Region
East Asia

Overview

Maynila (Selurong/Seludong; c. 1500–1571) was a fortified Tagalog-Muslim polity at the mouth of the Pasig River (site of modern Manila), a Bruneian satellite/trading colony. Its paramount rulers held the Malay title "Raja"; leaders included Salalila (c. 1500s–c. 1521), Ache (Rajah Matanda, "the Old King," r. c. 1521–1572)—who as a young prince married a Brunei princess in 1521 and served as grand admiral for the Sultan of Brunei—and his nephew Rajah Sulayman. Bruneian tradition holds that Sultan Bolkiah (r. 1485–1521) founded Selurong c. 1500 to break Tondo's monopoly on Chinese trade. Cosmopolitan and fortified with a rammed-earth kota bearing locally cast cannon along the Pasig delta, Maynila traded with Brunei, Sulu, Ternate, China, and beyond. In 1570–1571 Spanish forces under Martín de Goiti and Miguel López de Legazpi attacked and burned the kota; on its ruins the Spanish built Intramuros, ending the polity.

Common questions

What was Maynila?
Maynila (Selurong/Seludong; c. 1500–1571) was a fortified Tagalog-Muslim polity at the mouth of the Pasig River (site of modern Manila), a Bruneian satellite/trading colony. Its paramount rulers held the Malay title "Raja"; leaders included Salalila (c. 1500s–c. 1521), Ache (Rajah Matanda, "the Old King," r. c. 1521–1572)—who as a young prince married a Brunei princess in 1521 and served as grand admiral for the Sultan of Brunei—and his nephew Rajah Sulayman.
When did Maynila exist?
Maynila existed c. 1500–1571. On this map it is drawn 1521–1599.
How large was Maynila?
At its greatest extent drawn on this map, Maynila covered about 4,000 km². That is the largest area the border data gives it across the years it is drawn, not necessarily its greatest extent in history.

Sources

This compendium cites its sources once for the whole document rather than per territory. Its bibliography names the English Wikipedia article for each polity as the basis of these profiles, supplemented by Encyclopaedia Britannica, chinaknowledge.de, the World History Encyclopedia, museum and university sources, and the academic works it lists. The article this entry is anchored on:

This entry was last updated .

This entry was researched and drafted with AI from the sources above, and has not been reviewed by a historian. How entries are made

Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.

Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).

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