Piat, Cagayan

Piat is known throughout the Philippines because of the Shrine of the Our Lady of Piat. Pilgrims and tourists from all walks of life pay homage to her shrine. In the “Historia de Nuestra de Piat”, the image of our Lady of Piat was brought from Macau, a colony of Portugal in China. The miraculous Our Lady of Piat, the Lady of Visitacion, was originally called the Lady of the Rosary, perhaps because it was supposedly brought to the Philippines in 1604 by the devotees of the Rosary, the Dominican Friars. The image is famous in the country and abroad as the Black Mary, thus making Piat the Pilgrimage Center in the Northeast. Pilgrims are drawn to her shrine every year, with the pilgrimage reaching its peak on her feast day every July 2 every year.

The town is a fourth class municipality, with a population of 21,211 and an estimated annual income of 45.177 million. Dominantly an agricultural area, the town has a land area of 29,118 hectares with rice, corn, and sugar as main products.