Moro people
Muslim-majority ethnic groups on Mindanao, Joló and Palawan in the Philippines
The Moro people or Bangsamoro people are the 13 Muslim-majority ethnolinguistic Austronesian groups of Mindanao, Sulu, and Palawan, native to the Philippine region known as the Bangsamoro (a recent neologism reaching national prominence in the 2010s, meaning lit. 'Moro nation' or 'Moro country'), which is colloquially known as "Muslim Mindanao". As Muslim-majority ethnic groups, they form the largest non-Christian population in the Philippines.. According to the 2020 census conducted by the Philippine Statistics Authority, they comprise about 6.5% of the country's total population, or 7.1 million people.
Most Moros are followers of Sunni Islam. The Moros were once independent under a variety of local states, including the Sultanate of Sulu, the Sultanate of Maguindanao, the Sultanate of Buayan, and the Confederation of sultanates in Lanao; withstanding repeated Spanish invasions, the Moro states remained de facto independent up until the Moro rebellion of the early 20th century. Upon Philippine independence in 1946, the Moros continued their struggle for self-determination against a predominantly-Christian Philippines, culminating in a decades-long insurgency of armed rebel groups, chief among them the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), against the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
The Moro people are guaranteed an autonomous region under the Constitution of the Philippines; however, the establishment of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao did not satisfy the demands of rebel groups. A ceasefire and successful peace talks between the Philippine government and the MILF led to the creation of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao in 2018, a region with greater political autonomy and powers.
Today, outside the Bangsamoro autonomous region, the Moro people are a significant minority in nearby provinces, including Soccsksargen, Palawan, Samar, and the Bicol Region. They are a visible and integrated minority in various urban centers of the country, such as Manila, Cebu, and Davao.
The public source identifies “Moro people” as muslim-majority ethnic groups on Mindanao, Joló and Palawan in the Philippines. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Moro, people and Muslim-majority.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1048545. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2020, 1946 and 2018.
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This entry incorporates text from “Moro people” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.