Vigan During the Spanish Times Vigan was the first Spanish settlement set up in the North in January

1574. It w as commissioned by Governor General Guido de lavesares and Juan de Salcedo was g iven specific instructions to name the settlement Villa Fernandina, in honor of the first son of King Philip II, Prince Ferdinand, who died when he was four yea rs old. Vigan was originally just a backwater settlement with very few Spanish residents . Nueva Segovia in Cagayan was more developed and in 1959 was the ecclesiastical seat of the Catholic Church for the whole of the Northern Luzon dioceses which stretched from batanes in the North to Pangasinan in the South. But since Nueva Segovia, which was only three miles south of the mouth of Ibanog River, was cons tantly ravaged by floods during the rainy season, most of the bishops assigned t o the diocese started to prefer to reside at Villa Fernandina. Since 1602, this preference became a tradition until Villa Fernandina was proclaimed "Ciudad Fern andina" by Pope Benedict XIV and King Ferdinand VI of Spain on September 7, 1738 . This elevated Villa Fernandina from a backwater pueblo to become the new seat of the Northern Luzon diocese which would include the territory of Nueva Segovia .