Calauan

Calauan, also spelled as Calauang,^[9] got its name from the Tagalog term kalawang, which means rust. Folklore has it that during the construction of the Municipal Church, water seeped into the holes dug for its foundation, giving it a brown, rusty hue, hence the name Calauan (Kalawang).

The fertile soil of Calauan attracted the attention of Captain Juan de Salcedo, when he passed through Laguna and Tayabas (now Quezon) on his way to Bicol in 1572. Ten years later, Spanish authorities established a town government two kilometers (1.2 mi) from the site of the present Poblacion, in what is now Barrio Mabacan. They called the townsite “Calauan” (Tagalog word for rust). Following in epidemic in 1703, the town was moved to its present site at the fork of three roads—now to the south-west leading to San Pablo, the other southeastward to Santa Cruz, the provincial capital, and the third going North to Manila.

At the turn of the 18th century, when Bay was designated as the provincial capital of Laguna, Calauan became a sitio of Bay. Merchants going to Southern Luzon passed through Bay and Calauan. One of them, an opulent Spaniard by the name of Iñigo, bought large tracts of land in Calauan in 1812. The landholdings of Iñigo and, later, of his heirs were so vast that many portions were still unsettled. The property was and still is, known as Hacienda Calauan. About a century later, the people of Calauan fought a “guardia civil” during the Philippine Revolution. Basilio Geiroza (better known as Cabesang Basilio) and his men routed a battalion of “guardia civiles” in a five-hour battle in Bario Cupangan (now Lamot I) in December 1897. During the subsequent Philippine-American hostilities, Calauan patriots fought numerically superior forces of General Elwell Otis in Barrio San Diego of San Pablo. With the establishment of civilian authority in Calauan in 1902, the Americans assigned Mariano Marfori as first “presidente”. Hacienda Calauan financed the construction of a hospital in 1926, and Mariano O. Marfori Jr. son of the first municipal presidente, as hospital director and the resident physician, respectively.

In 1939, by the request of President Manuel L. Quezon, Doña Margarita Roxas vda. de Soriano, granddaughter of the Spaniard, Iñigo., subdivided Hacienda Calauan and sold it to the tenants, part of what remained was converted into a rest house and a swimming pool and it became one of the tourist attractions until 1956.

In 1993, the town became the focus of media attention when Antonio Sanchez, who was serving as mayor at the time, got involved into a rape and double murder case involving two University of the Philippines Los Baños students. Sanchez and several other men were given a life sentence in March 1995.^[10]

Situated at 73 kilometers (45 mi) southeast of Manila, via Calamba and Los Baños, and 26 kilometers (16 mi) from Santa Cruz. Calauan is known for the Pineapple Festival, which is celebrated every 15 May.

Barangays

Calauan is politically subdivided into 17 barangays, as indicated below. ^[12] Each barangay consists of puroks and some have sitios.

• Balayhangin
• Bangyas
• Dayap
• Hanggan
• Imok
• Lamot 1
• Lamot 2
• Limao
• Mabacan
• Masiit
• Paliparan
• Pérez
• Kanluran (Poblacion)
• Silangan (Poblacion)
• Prinza
• San Isidro
• Santo Tomas

In the 2024 census, the population of Calauan, Laguna, was 89,670 people,^[19] with a density of 1,400 inhabitants per square kilometer or 3,600 inhabitants per square mile.

Calauan's population is expected to rise, as the town is being used as resettlement of informal settlers in Metro Manila through the Bayan ni Juan and the Kapit-Bisig para sa Ilog Pasig project of the ABS-CBN Foundation.

Poverty incidence of Calauan

Source: Philippine Statistics Authority^{[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27]}

The Calauan Schools District Office governs all educational institutions within the municipality. It oversees the management and operations of all private and public, from primary to secondary schools.^[28]