Bohol is an island province of the Philippines located in the Central Visayas region, consisting of Bohol Island and 75 minor surrounding islands.Its capital is Tagbilaran City. With a land area of 4,117.3 square kilometers (1,589.7 sq mi) and a coastline 261 kilometers (162 mi) long, Bohol is the tenth largest island of the Philippines.To the west of Bohol is Cebu, to the northeast is the island of Leyte and to the south, across the Bohol Sea is Mindanao.
The province is a popular tourist destination with its beaches and resorts.The Chocolate Hills, numerous mounds of limestone formation, is the most popular attraction. Panglao Island, located just southwest of Tagbilaran City, is famous for its diving locations and routinely listed as one of the top ten diving locations in the world. Numerous tourist resorts dot the southern beaches and cater to divers from around the world. The Philippine Tarsier, considered the second-smallest primate in the world, is indigenous to the island.
Boholanos refer to their island homeland as the "Republic of Bohol" with both conviction and pride.A narrow strait separates the island of Cebu and Bohol and both share a common language, but the Boholanos retain a conscious distinction from the Cebuanos. Bohol's climate is generally dry, with maximum rainfall between the months of June and October. The interior is cooler than the coast.
It is the home province of Carlos P. Garcia, the fourth president of the Republic of the Philippines (1957–1961) who was born in Talibon, Bohol.

How to Get in

By Plane
At the mome

nt, Bohol's city airport in Tagbilaran services daily Cebu Pacific and Philippine Airline flights from Manila. It is undergoing renovation to accommodate the B-737s of Philippine Airlines. Ramp area improvement and the construction of a modernized airport building will soon ensure bigger aircraft will allow

direct flight into Bohol. Most guests to Bohol enter the island either by land or sea via its island neighbor, Cebu.

By Boat

The Tagbilaran City Tourist Pier handles more than 4,000 travelers on a daily basis.
Nine daily ship calls from Cebu are processed efficiently, with other ships from Manila, Cagayan de Oro Ci

ty, Dumaguete, D

ipolog, Iligan City, Larena, Plaridel and Ozamiz City also welcomed on a regular basis. A

nother four port terminals cater specifically to Cebu and northern Mindanao routes. Additional berthing space for fastcraft ferries is currently under construction.

What to See

Tarsier

For the past 45 million years, tarsiers have inhabited rainforests around the world, but now they only exist on a few islands in the Philippines, Borneo and Indonesia. In Bohol, the Philippine Tarsier was a common sight in the southern part of the island until the 1960's. Once protected by the humid rainforests and mist-shr

ouded hills, these mysterious primates struggle to survive as their home is cleared for crop growing and poaching.

To date, the Philippine Tarsier Foundation has acquired 7.4 hectares of land in Corella, Bohol for a Tarsier sanctuary. With the Department of Environment and Natural Resources playing an oversight role, t

he foundation has asked other Bohol towns with Philippines Tarsier populations to donate 20 hectares (49.4 acres) of forestland for conservation.It also runs a Tarsier Research and Development Center, which serves as a visitor center and venue for research, as well as a habitat preserve. At the sanctuary, a spacious net enclosure keeps a number of Philippine Tarsiers for feeding, captive breeding and display. Here, visitors can observe the Philippine Tarsier in their natural habitat. Within the sanctuary, the Philippine Tarsiers roam freely and all of them have got used to a seven-foot high fence that circumscribes the territory and which serves mainly to protect them from predators like feral cats while maintaining a theoretical chance for tarsiers to leave the enclosure and return as their wish.
Do not visit the

caged Tarsiers which are elsewhere on the island (especially in Loboc). These are kept in insufficient conditions and often die of stress from the visitors and poor care. Dead animals are frequently replaced by new one illegally captured from the while creating a high stress on the yet surviving population.
The Tarsier was used by Stephen Spielberg as the inspiration for E.T.
Official Website of the Philippine Tarsier Foundation, Inc.

The Chocolate Hills

The Chocolate Hills of Bohol
The Chocolate Hills are probably Bohol's most famous tourist attraction. The hills, which look like giant mole hill, are considered unusual geological formation that consists of at least 1,268 individual mounds that are scattered throughout the municipalities of Carmen, Batuan, and Sagbayan. The hills range from 30 to 50 meters high and are covered in green grass, which turns to brown during the dry season, making them look like chocolate mounds. ( Quoted from "Your Guide to Bohol" by Sanchez-Bronce, Loop and Carpentier)
Legend has it that the hills came into existence when two giants threw stones and sand at each other in a fight that lasted for days. When they were finally exhausted, they made friends and left the island, but left behind the mess they made. For the more romantically inclined is the tale of Arogo, a young and very strong giant who fell in love with an ordinary mortal girl called Aloya. After she died, the giant Arogo cried bitterly. His tears then turned into hills, as a lasting proof of his grief.
However, up to this day, even geologists have not reached consensus on how they where formed. The most commonly accept theory is that they are the weathered formations of a kind of marine limestone on top of a impermeable layer of clay.