San Isidro, officially the Municipality of San Isidro (Cebuano: Lungsod ng San Isidro; Tagalog: Bayan ng San Isidro), is a 3rd class municipality in the province of Davao Oriental, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 33,664 people.

San Isidro is one of the "gulf towns" of Davao Oriental whose shorelines stretch along Davao Gulf. Other gulf towns are Banaybanay, Lupon and Governor Generoso.

History

The town of San Isidro was created by virtue of Republic Act No. 4744 enacted by the Philippine Congress on June 18, 1966. It started operating as a local government unit in January 1968. Its founder and the first mayor was Vicente Yu, Sr.

Geography

Climate

Barangays

San Isidro is politically subdivided into 16 barangays. Each barangay consists of puroks while some have sitios.

Seven barangays are along the coastlines while the other nine are in the interior areas.

Demographics

Population census of San Isidro

Year	Pop.	±% p.a.
1970	24,270	—
1975	28,360	+3.17%
1980	28,955	+0.42%
1990	28,936	−0.01%
1995	30,279	+0.85%
2000	31,705	+0.99%
2007	32,139	+0.19%
2010	32,424	+0.32%
2015	36,032	+2.03%
2020	33,664	−1.33%
Source: Philippine Statistics Authority

Around 30% of the population belong to the indigenous Mandaya and Kalagan communities.

Economy

Poverty incidence of San Isidro

10 20 30 40 50 2006 41.90 2009 47.39 2012 35.23 2015 34.32 2018 31.24 2021 24.27 Source: Philippine Statistics Authority

San Isidro is largely planted with coconut, with much of its agricultural industry focuses on the production of copra. There are currently efforts to further diversify the output of the municipality's coconut-based industry from copra to other value-added coconut products such as coco-oil (which can be used as a fuel additive) and coco-coir. In 1992, a Crop Diversification Program of the local government unit (LGU) was implemented with mango as "export winner". In 1998, the town commenced its first Mango Festival as an indicator of the prominence of this high yielding fruit. Farmers are also engaged in growing the popular banana (cardava). Despite this, farmers still experience difficulties in increasing their income due to lack of agricultural technology specially those farming in the upland areas.

The aggressive anti-illegal fishing efforts of the LGU decreased dynamite fishing and able to establish fish sanctuaries in San Isidro waters. Most of the fishermen in this town used paddle-boat than motorized boat in fishing.

Tourism

The municipality's seascape offers potential marine-based recreational industries on the as yet virtually undisturbed Tinaytay and Burias reefs a few kilometers offshore. In addition, its scenic nature spots include beaches untouched by urban development; the cascading Cawa-cawa Stepped Falls, and the 12 km Pygmy or Bonsai forests in the thickly forested highlands of the municipality.

Mount Hamiguitan Range Wildlife Sanctuary

One of the tourist spots easily accessible from San Isidro is the Mount Hamiguitan Range Wildlife Sanctuary. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site as it currently serves as the habitat of different endangered species of flora and fauna. What makes it an even more critical habitat for these plants and animals is that eight of those threatened species are only found at Mount Hamiguitan. Endangered species in the site include the Philippine eagle and Philippine cockatoo.