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Intramuros was founded in 1571 by Spanish conquistador Miguel López de Legazpi, who established it as a fortified seat of Spanish colonial government. For roughly three centuries, only Spaniards and mestizos -- people of mixed Spanish and Filipino ancestry, who made up the colony's upper and ruling classes -- were permitted to live within its walls.
Intramuros expanded and was rebuilt repeatedly over the centuries, its walls and buildings damaged by earthquakes, fire, and conflict more than once. Its most devastating turning point came in 1945, during the Battle of Manila in World War II -- fighting between American and Japanese forces reduced most of the district to rubble, and only a handful of structures, most notably San Agustin Church, survived intact.
Miguel López de Legazpi founded Intramuros as the administrative heart of Spanish Manila. Centuries later, Philippine national hero José Rizal was imprisoned at Fort Santiago before his 1896 execution -- a period now central to how the district tells its own history, transforming a former symbol of colonial rule into a site of Philippine nationalism as well.
Intramuros has shifted from an exclusive colonial enclave into a heritage and cultural district open to everyone, with restoration work -- ongoing since the postwar decades -- gradually rebuilding what the Battle of Manila destroyed. San Agustin Church, the district's oldest surviving building, is now part of a separate UNESCO World Heritage Site recognizing the Philippines' Baroque churches.
Today Intramuros functions as both a living neighborhood and an open-air heritage site, managed by the Intramuros Administration, which oversees ongoing restoration of its walls, churches, and colonial-era buildings for the district's continued use as one of Manila's principal cultural attractions.