Gateway to Palawan — the Puerto Princesa Underground River navigates 8 km through a mountain with a lagoon inside, voted one of the New Seven Wonders of Nature, accessible only by paddle boat
Puerto Princesa (pop. 307,000) is the capital of Palawan Province and the arrival gateway for the Philippines' most spectacular natural attractions. The Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park — a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the New Seven Wonders of Nature (voted 2012) — contains an 8.2-km underground river flowing through a mountain into the sea, with a navigable portion of 4.3 km accessible only by paddle boat guided by authorized operators. Inside the cave, the river flows through chambers containing massive stalactites and stalagmites, colonies of cave swiftlets and cav…
Puerto Princesa was established as a Spanish colonial settlement in 1872, primarily as a penal colony for Filipino prisoners — the city has a long administrative history as a provincial capital that goes back to the American colonial period (1901). Palawan as a whole had a different trajectory from most of the Philippines: its distance from Luzon and Visayas, and the difficulty of access until the 20th century, meant that its indigenous peoples (the Tagbanua, Palawan, and Batak peoples, among others) were displaced later and more slowly than in other provinces. The Puerto Princesa Subterranea…