Indang

Geography

Indang is an inland municipality with an area of 8,920 hectares. It is centrally located in the province of Cavite. It is bounded on the north by the municipality of Naic and Trece Martires City, on the south by municipality of Mendez and Tagaytay City, on the west by municipalities of Alfonso and Maragondon, and on the east by the municipality of Amadeo and city of General Trias.

The topography of Indang is characterized by gently sloping or rolling terrain. Almost 40.36% of its total land area is within the slope grade of 3-8% while 2,135 hectares is within the slope range of 8-15% which is characterized by undulating/sloping terrain.

Elevation

The land elevation ranges from 230 to 380 meters above sea level. The land area is furthermore fairy well dissected by numerous creeks and streams that are deeply cut, characterized by steep and abrupt banks. These almost parallel drainage lines flow in northern direction to discharge into either Manila Bay or Laguna de Bay.

Barangays

Indang is politically subdivided into 36 Barangays.

History

Indang (originally called Indan) was established as a town in 1655, when it was administratively separated from the nearby town of Silang, Cavite. The name "Indan" was derived from the Tagalog word "indang" or "inrang", a tree which grew there.

A part of Silang for about 70 years, the municipality of Indang was organized with a prominent native, Juan Dimabiling, as the first gobernadorcillo. The distance between the barrio of Indang and the poblacion of Silang caused the residents of the former great difficulty in transacting officials business and attending religious services. This led the people of Indang to petition higher authorities for the conversion of the barrio into a separate municipality. The petition was granted, and Indang became full-fledged town in 1655.

During the Philippine Revolution, Indan was known by its Katipunan name "Walang Tinag". It was also during this time that the letter "g" was added to its name; thus it is now called Indang. It belongs to the Magdiwang faction, which rivals the Magdalo faction headed by Emilio Aguinaldo. In Barangay Limbon, Andrés Bonifacio was arrested after being defeated in the Tejeros Convention and to prevented from pursuing his counter-revolutionary plan according to witnesses. One of these witness was Severino De las Alas, a resident of the town, who accused Bonifacio of trying to burn the Church of Indang, dedicated to the town patron, St. Gregory the Great, built in the 17th century and one of the oldest in the province. He later served in Emilio Aguinaldo's government as Interior Secretary.

The Cavite State University began here in 1906 as an intermediate school and was later transformed into a high school. Named after Severino De las Alas in 1958, it later become a college in 1962 and in 1998 earned university status.

The town of Indang has two parishes, the first is the Saint Gregory the Great Parish Church located at the town proper, built in 1625. Second is Saint Vincent Ferrer Parish Church located at Lumampong Halayhay Indang Cavite built as a chapel in 1851 and converted into a parish in 2011 - the youngest to be established.

Demographics

In the 2015 census, the population of Indang, was 65,599 people, with a density of 880 inhabitants per square kilometre or 2,300 inhabitants per square mile. There are five (5) residential subdivisions within the municipality which occupied 44.75 hectares of land.

Economy

The economy of Indang largely depends on agriculture. It is a first-class municipality. The 80.45% or 7,176.38 hectares are primarily devoted to agriculture. They are predominantly planted with various types of crops like coconut, banana, coffee, fruit trees, and pineapple, while there are small portions of rice, root crops, vegetables, and corn. Most farmers are engaged in multi-cropping farming system. The largest number of employment is farming and trading of agricultural products. Livestock and poultry raisers occupied an area of about 22.76 hectares or 0.32% of the total agricultural area.

On the trade and industry, existing commercial and agribusiness establishments play a relatively major role in the predominantly agri-based economy of Indang.

Municipal record on this establishment shows the wholesale and retail trade stores are clustered within the poblacion or urban area while in the rural, the trading establishments are dominated by sari-sari stores.

Agro-business commercial farms raise large volumes of livestock and poultry. As per record of the municipal agricultural office, there are existing hog farms, broiler farms, layer and breeder farms.

Indang Public Market and Slaughterhouse stand on 20,316 square meter government-owned property along Dimabiling St., Barangay IV (Poblacion). This public market has three (3) simple market buildings and “Bagsakan” for wholesale trading. The slaughterhouse occupies an area of 1,800 square meters, which is adjacent to meat section of market building. It has complete facilities like corral and hog-holding pen with drainage and sanitation facilities.

Land transportation is the principal mode of transporting goods and services in Indang and its neighboring municipalities. Vehicular routes going to other municipalities are Indang - Tagaytay, Indang - Alfonso, Indang - Naic, and Indang - Trece Martires City - Dasmarinas via Baclaran and vice versa. There are several types of vehicles transversing the place, but the most commonly used vehicles for public conveyances are buses, jeepneys and a number of tricycles plying within the Poblacion area and nearby barangays.

Indang has 25.535 km. barangay roads, 5.01 km municipal roads, 25.534 km. provincial roads, 26.568 km national roads, and 44.744 km. farm-to-market roads within the municipality. The barangay roads primarily provide the delivery of goods, services, and facilities which bring improvement on the living condition of the rural populace. On the other hand, the 93.10% of farm-to-market roads are not passable particularly during rainy seasons. The widening and improvement of these roads would ensure faster, easier, and safer transport of farm products. There are 25 bridges connecting the 20 barangays of this municipality, these are classified as national, provincial, and barangay bridges.

Newspapers, magazines, and other related reading materials reach the municipality. Likewise, radio and television sets have a good reception. All these forms of communication channels make the populace of Indang well-informed and up-to-date in terms of national and international issues.

The Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) and Digital Telecommunications Philippines (Digitel) are the two leading telephone companies serving the municipality. The PLDT has its branch office at barangay Kaytapos, while the Digitel branch office is located at Tagaytay City. Year 2010, Globe Telecom is now operating their telephone lines bundled with DSL to selected barangays of Indang including Poblacion, Kaytapos and Alulod.

Smart Communications, Globe Telecom and Digitel thru Sun Cellular installed their Mobile Base Transceiver Stations and Telecommunication Antenna Tower in the locality. Smart has currently five mobile base station towers, Globe has only eight and Sun Cellular has one mobile transceiver facility. Cellular phones are commonly used by the residents especially in remote barangay where telephone landline services are not available.

Cavite State University

The Cavite State University main campus (formerly Don Severino Agricultural College) is located in Indang. It straddles Barangays Kaytapos and Bancod due to its large size.