Boracay Island

Boracay Island

Boracay is a holiday island in the West Visayas region of the Philippines. Boracay was originally populated by the Tumand and Ati peoples, but commercial development since the 1970s has led to their severe marginalization. The island is about seven kilometers long, shaped like a dog's bone, with its narrowest point less than a kilometer wide and a land area of 10.32 square kilometers. The two main tourist beaches of Boracay, White Beach and Bulabog Beach, are situated on opposite sides of the narrow central area of the island. White Beach faces west and Bulabog Beach faces east, but the island has several other beaches. The main tourist beach, White Beach, is about 4 kilometers long and is packed with resorts, hotels, guesthouses, restaurants and various tourism-related businesses. In the middle, for about two kilometers, a footpath called the Beachfront Path separates the beach itself from the facilities along the coast. Bulabog Beach, located opposite White Beach, is the island's second most visited tourist beach and Boracay's main surfing and kiteboarding area. Other leisure activities available on the island include horseback riding, scuba diving, diving helmet, snorkeling, windsurfing, cliff diving and parasailing. There are at least three species of flying foxes recorded in Boracay, notably the Giant Golden-Crowned Flying Fox, the Giant Fruit Bat and the Small Flying Fox. The bats are concentrated in Barangay Yapak on the northern side of the island, where a local ordinance has made it illegal to hunt them.