COMMUNITY PROFILE

The history of the Municipality of Santa Barbara covers four

centuries. The Augustinian Archives Vols. 17-18 which record
documents on missionary achievements of the Augustinian missionaries
bare the historical note that as early as 1617, missionaries
attended to the spiritual ministration of a community or pueblo
then known as Catmon. The name was derived from a fruit-bearing tree
which served as an imposing landmark in the vicinity. The place was
a rich and fertile plain traversed by the Salug River, now Tagum and
Aganan rivers, producing rice, corn, sugar, monggo and tobacco.
During that time Catmon was only a Visita Catmon of Jaro
vicariate. Lately, in 1760, Catmon was canonically established as an
independent parish, whose patrones was Santa Barbara, and the
Settlement which was constituted in pueblo was named after her.
Its total population at the time was 15, 094 and in 1845, its
inhabitants reached a total of 19, 719. It covered an area which now
comprises the Municipalities of Zarraga, New Lucena and a part of
Leganes and Pavia.
Santa Barbara, is a premier suburban municipality of Iloilo is
strategically located at the centermost of the province. It lies
within 1220 29 15 East Longitude and within 10 0 35 15 and 100 35
North Latitude, by the Municipality of New Lucena, on the Northeast
of the Municipality of Zarraga, on the South of the Municipality of
Pavia, on the Southeast by the Municipality of San Miguel and on the
Northwest of the Municipality of Cabatuan.
It is 15.7 kilometers north or twenty-minute drive from the
City of Iloilo, through a well maintained asphalt/concrete national
highway. It is accessible by any land transportation with the
presence of a national highway, provincial, municipal and barangay
road networks cutting and criss-crossing its evirons.
It has a land area of 13,196 hectares, ranks 29 th as to size
among the 43 municipalities of the province and occupies 1.5% of all
lands in the Province of Iloilo. While only 25% of the country and
62% of the province is under constant cultivation, almost 100% of
Santa Barbaras land is cultivated and alienable or disposable.