Land Use


The city has a total land area of 3,487 hectares or 34.87 square kilometers. Every square kilometer is inhabited by more or less 8,112 people. Land utilization is summarized as follows:

Residential	872 hectares
Commercial	242 hectares
Industrial	1,695 hectares
Institutional	60 hectares
Parks/Open Spaces	24 hectares
Roads	120 hectares
Agricultural	283 hectares

The city is the 6th smallest government unit in terms of land area. Among the Metro Cebu local government units, the city is the second smallest, next to the municipality of Cordova, in the island of Mactan. The city’s land area is only 4.5% of the total land area of Metro Cebu and less than 1% of the total land area of the Province of Cebu.

The South Reclamation Project, now known as the South Special Administrative Zone, generated about 180 hectares. Of the 180 hectares, about 36 hectares belong to the city of Mandaue.

The proposed North Reclamation Project or what is now called as North Special Administrative Zone, will generate about 300 hectares of land. It will provide additional space for mixed land uses, covering industrial, commercial, residential uses. The proposed new City Hall will be constructed in the area which will also allocate spaces for Government Regional Offices. The existing mangrove area will be retained as a Marine habitat, part of the area's parks and open spaces.

Mandaue City is a low-lying area whose land elevation is below 100 meters. It is one of the two (the other one being the municipality of Consolacion) local government units located within the mainland Metro Cebu where the elevation of land is less than 100 meters.

Many of the areas of the city are extremely flat. About 77.37% is within the 0-8% slope category. Barangays belonging to this category are Centro, Looc, South Special Administative Zone, Cambaro, Opao, Umapad, Paknaan, Alang-alang, Tipolo, Ibabao, Guizo, Subangdaku, Mantuyong, Maguikay, and Tabok.

The greater portion of the city, comprising about 70%, is dominated by the Mandaue Clay Loam soil series. This is found in the 0-2% and 2-5% slope ranges. Faraon clay loam characterizes the rest of the land with slope range from 5-8% and up to 25-40%.

Of the city's twenty-seven barangays, Banilad has the biggest land area at 281.57 hectares, followed by Basak at 254 hectares. Casuntingan registers a land area of 224.12 hectares while Tawason has 180.11 hectares.