The Land |
Topography and Terrain
The city forms an elongated strip varying in width from 500
meters at its narrowest to 2 kilometers at its widest following
the configuration of the shoreline. Ridges with an average
altitude of 30 meters running almost parallel to the shoreline
forms a natural spine that seems to have served in the past
as the settlement’s limit. Two peaks rise on both ends of
the ridge, Elley Hill (100 meters) in the north and Mt. Banat-i
(145 meters) in the south. Except for these two protrusions
Tagbilaran is generally even with moderately rolling lands.
The terrain ranges from moderately rolling with prevailing
slopes from 3 to 6 percent along the coastlines to generally
flat and level land. Sunken areas and sinkholes are occasionally
found in the interior.
Geology
The City of Tagbilaran sits on a generally flat limestone
formation with a relatively very thin soil cover. The shallow
superficial and unconsolidated soils are derived from the
insitu (residual) weathering of underlying coralline limestone.
Due to the thin soil cover, bedrocks are cropping out even
in low lying portions including shore areas. Over the hills
(Mt. Banat-i and Elly) and the ridges are practically without
soil cover due to the fairly rapid surface run-off waters
which erodes the soil to the low lying areas.
Tagbilaran practically sits on a cave network. The occurrence
of numerous underground caverns could be attributed to the
absence of rivers and natural water channel ways in the area.
The action of the surface waters infiltrating the normal fissures
and joints of the substrata produced the enlargement and widening
of cavities which ultimately formed into caverns.
Soil
There are two main types of soil found in the City of Tagbilaran,
namely: the Faraon Clay and the Bolinao Clay.
Faraon clay is the more dominant soil type with about 2,139.16
hectares or sixty three percent (63%) of the total land area
of the city, mostly found in the coastal barangays; while
the Bolinao clay abounds in the hinterland barangays which
accounts for 1,131.74 hectares or 34.7% of the land area.
Vegetation
The dominant vegetation cover is generally of open grassland
with patches woody shrubs and bushes. Agricultural cash crops
are very marginal. Permanent crops or fruit trees are occasionally
grown with few stands of timber trees. Patches of mangroves
are grown in shore areas.
Coastline
The city’s coastline is irregular with a total length of about
12.2 lineal kilometers stretching from Barangay Bool on the
South to Barangay Manga to the North. It embraces eight (8)
barangays namely Mansasa, Poblacion I, Poblacion II, Cogon,
Booy, Taloto, Ubujan and Manga. Beaches are predominantly
rocky or stony and characteristically narrow which rise abruptly
into rocky cliffs. Beach sand are practically nil. |
SOURCE:
Socio-Economic Profile: City of Tagbilaran, 2002
(Office of the City Planning and Development Coordinator) |
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