Demographics
| Dialect | Population |
|---|---|
| Hokkienese | 1,044,000 |
| Cantonese | 13,000 |
| Mandarin | 550 |
| Chinese Mestizo | 486,000 |
The exact number of all ethnic Chinese in the Philippines is unknown. Various estimates have been given from the start of the Spanish Colonial Period up to the present ranging from 1% to as large as 25%, including the Chinese Mestizos. The National Statistics Office does not conduct surveys of ethnicity.
According to a research report by historian Austin Craig who was commissioned by the United States on 1915 to ascertain the total number of the various races of the Philippines, the pure Chinese, referred to as Sangley, number around 20,000 (as of 1818), and that around one-third of the population of Luzon have partial Chinese ancestry. This comes with a footnote about the widespread concealing and de-emphasising of the exact number of Chinese in the Philippines.
Another source dating from the Spanish Colonial Period shows the growth of the Chinese and the Chinese Mestizo population to nearly 10% of the Philippine population by 1894.
| Race | Population (1810) | Population (1850) | Population (1894) |
|---|---|---|---|
| indio (i.e., Filipino) | 2,395,677 | 4,725,000 | 6,768,000 |
| mestizo de sangley (i.e., Chinese Mestizo) | 120,621 | 240,000 | 500,000 |
| sangley (i.e., Unmixed Chinese) | 7,000 | 10,000 | 100,000 |
| Peninsular (i.e., Spaniard) | 4,000 | 25,000 | 35,000 |
| Total | 2,527,298 | 5,000,000 | 7,403,000 |
Read more about this topic: Chinese Filipino