Manila — a walled Muslim city that became a walled Spanish one

Long before Spanish ships arrived, the mouth of the Pasig River was already a fortified settlement: a walled trading port ruled by local rajahs who taxed every vessel passing upstream. On 24 June 1571, Spanish conquistador Miguel López de Legazpi defeated the local rulers, destroyed their settlement, and declared a new city on the same site — Manila, capital of the Spanish East Indies. Rather than start from open ground, Legazpi built directly over the ruins, ordering construction of a new walled city, Intramuros, literally "within the walls," which still stands today as one of the best-preserved examples of a Spanish colonial fortress town in Asia.

For over three centuries, Manila anchored the Manila Galleon trade, the transpacific shipping route linking Asia to Spanish Mexico, before the Spanish-American War ended Spanish rule in 1898 when the US Navy defeated the Spanish fleet at the Battle of Manila Bay. Inside Intramuros, Fort Santiago carries an even heavier weight of history: built the same year the city was founded, it later held Filipino national hero José Rizal in the days before his execution in 1896, his final footsteps to the firing squad still marked in bronze on the fort's paths today.

What the cameras show

Manila beyond the webcams

Intramuros: the Spanish-era walled city, its ramparts, churches and Fort Santiago among the oldest surviving structures in the Philippines.

Fort Santiago: the citadel where José Rizal was imprisoned before his 1896 execution, now home to a museum honouring his life.

Manila Bay: the natural harbour that made the city a trading hub for over three centuries, still lined with a famous sunset promenade.

When to watch

Sunset: for Manila Bay's famously vivid sunsets over the water, best seen from the Baywalk promenade.

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Getting there: Intramuros sits at the mouth of the Pasig River in central Manila, Philippines.