Tagalog, largest cultural-linguistic group in the Philippines. They form the dominant population in the city of Manila; in all provinces bordering Manila Bay except Pampanga; in Nueva Ecija to the north; and in Batangas, Laguna, Marinduque, Mindoro, and Quezon to the south. Tagalog is an Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian) language like the other Philippine languages. The mother tongue of some 19,550,000 Filipinos, it was chosen as the basis of the national language (Pilipino) and is taught in all schools.
Most Tagalog are farmers. Their local governments, or barrios, similar to U.S. townships, are aggregations of small hamlets (sitios) together with the surrounding farmland. Most rice is grown in flooded, diked fields, but some is produced dry in the upland areas. The principal cash crops are sugarcane and coconuts. The importance of Manila has given the urban Tagalog leadership in commerce, finance, manufacturing, the professions, and clerical and service operations. More than 80 percent of the people in the Tagalog provinces are Roman Catholic.
Through Manila, the Tagalog served for more than 500 years as mediators with the Chinese, Spanish, and Americans, selecting from, interpreting, and adapting these foreign cultures to the basic Indo-Malayan social pattern. The Tagalog have thus led in the modernization and Westernization that has passed in varying degrees from Luzon to all parts of the Philippine archipelago.
The Tagalog, however, have sharply resisted alien economic and political control. They initiated the anti-Spanish propaganda movement of the 19th century, and their generals led in armed revolts against Spain and the United States in 1896–1902. The principal Philippine national heroes of this period were Tagalog, and the Tagalog were among the leaders in the subsequent achievement of Philippine independence by constitutional means.