Poro, Cebu

Poro, officially the Municipality of Poro, is a municipality in the province of Cebu, Philippines. According to the 2024 census, it has a population of 26,908 people.
The patronal feast of Poro is celebrated on the third Friday of January, in honour of the Santo Niño de Cebu.

Geography

Poro is bordered to the north by the province of Leyte across the Camotes Sea; to the west by Pacijan Island, where the town of San Francisco is located; to the east by the town of Tudela; and to the south by the Camotes Sea.
Poro, along with the municipality of Tudela, is located on Poro Island of the Camotes Islands.

Poro is politically subdivided into 17 barangays. Each barangay consists of puroks and some have sitios.

The town's name is derived from the Waray-Waray word puro meaning "island". This how Camotes Island is called by Warays and Leyteños. Before the first municipality to be established in Camotes, puro meant the name of all the islands.
Aside from Cebuano, Waray, Tagalog, and English, the townsfolk also speak the local Porohanon language. Also known as Camotes Visayan, the language is mutually intelligible with other Visayan languages spoken in the rest of the Camotes Islands, Cebu, other parts of the Visayas, and Northern Mindanao.
The town is home to the Porohanon language, one of the most endangered languages in the Visayas. The language is only used in the Poro islands. The language is classified as distinct from Cebuano by the Komisyon ng Wikang Filipino and is vital to the culture and arts of the Porohanon people. Porohanon is distinguished by the way the locals substitute /'/ sounds with /'/, for instance Cebuano maayong buntag vocalised as maazong buntag in Porohanon. Other dialectical variations include the Porohanon ara dira instead of the standard Cebuano na-a diha.