Aringay

Aringay is located about 239 kilometres (149 mi) north of Manila and 31 kilometres (19 mi) south of San Fernando, the regional and provincial capital.

Aringay was an ancient village known in pre-colonial times as Alingay or Alinguey. When Spanish colonizers arrived in the late 16th century, they found an enclave of ethnic Pangasinenses actively trading with their Ilocano and Ifugao neighbors and traders from China, Japan and Southeast Asia. In a small village now known as Samara, a settlement headed by a descendant of Lakan Dula is thriving. The presence of Spanish soldiers, administrators, and Augustinian missionaries ushered in the town’s colonial era and its conversion to Roman Catholicism.

Aringay remained a part of Pangasinan province until April 18, 1854, when the Spanish fused the northern towns of that province with the southern towns of Ilocos Sur to create the new province of La Union (hence, "The Union") The municipalities of Caba and Gallano (later placed in the province of Benguet and then abolished in 1900) were later carved out of Aringay’s northern borders.

The 18th and 19th centuries marked the active expansion of Ilocano territory. Scores of migrants from the Ilocos provinces pushed their way south so that by the end of the 19th century, Aringay was home to mostly Ilocano and Ilocanized Pangasinenses.

Outbreaks of rebellion rocked the town during four centuries of Spanish, American and Japanese colonization. Bloody confrontations ignited by revolutionaries such as Diego Silang and Gabriela Silang during Spanish occupation and by insurgents during the Philippine–American War and the Japanese occupation in World War II marred the bucolic villages of Aringay.

A decisive battle on Aringay River against U.S. forces crippled US forces. By 1901, the province of La Union was freed by the American occupation.

Japanese forces attacked Aringay in December 1941 and occupied the town until their brutal withdrawal in 1945-1946, when many Aringayenos massacred the entire battalion of Japanese command in Aringay.

In the 2015 census, the population of Aringay was 47,458 people, [3] with a density of 560 inhabitants per square kilometre or 1,500 inhabitants per square mile.

In 2014, La Union Second District Representative Eufranio Eriguel filed House Bill 4644, which seeks to merge the municipalities of Agoo and Aringay into a component city to be known as the City of Agoo-Aringay.[11]

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  Municipal hall
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  Public market
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  Town plaza
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  Aringay River
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  Street view

• Diego Silang
• Gloria Díaz - Miss Philippines 1969, Miss Universe 1969
• Elpidio Quirino

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Aringay, La Union.

• Aringay Profile at PhilAtlas.com
• Philippine Standard Geographic Code
• Philippine Census Information
• Local Governance Performance Management System