Wikipedia
Tacloban ( English: ; Waray and Filipino: [tɐkˈloban]) is a highly urbanized city in the Philippines and the provincial capital of Leyte where it is geographically situated but governed administratively independent from it. It is southeast from Manila. According to the , it has a population of and is the most populous city in the Eastern Visayas region.
It is also the regional center of Eastern Visayas, being the main gateway by air to the region. Tacloban was briefly the capital of the Philippines, from 20 October 1944 to 27 February 1945.
In an extensive survey conducted by the Asian Institute of Management Policy Center and released in July 2010, Tacloban ranks as the fifth most competitive city in the Philippines, and second in the emerging cities category.
On 8 November 2013, the city was largely destroyed by Typhoon Haiyan, having previously suffered similar destruction and loss of life in 1897 and 1912.
On 17 January 2015, Pope Francis visited Tacloban during his Papal Visit in the Philippines and held a mass at Barangay San Jose, and later he led mass of 30,000 people in front of the airport.