Nueva Vizcaya, Citrus Capital of the Philippines Watershed Haven of Cagayan Valley. Etymology and history .
It is a landlocked province in the Philippines located in the Cagayan Valley region in Luzon. Its capital is Bayombong. It is bordered by Benguet to the west, Ifugao to the north, Isabela to the northeast, Quirino to the east, Aurora to the southeast, Nueva Ecija to the south, and Pangasinan to the southwest.
The name Nueva Vizcaya is derived from the name of the province of Biscay (called Vizcaya in Spanish, Bizkaia in Basque) during the Spanish colonial period. This can be seen in the right part of the seal, a representation of the heraldic of Vizcaya in Spain.
The areas of present-day Nueva Vizcaya used to be part of the vast Provincia de Cagayan.Organized religion in Nueva Vizcaya dates back to the year 1607, when the Dominican Order arrived in the province. It was not until 1609, however, that the first settlement of a religious order was established in the southern half of the province. In 1702, a convent was erected in Burubur at the foot of the Caraballo Mountains in Santa Clara, which is now a barangay in the town of Aritao. It was on this site that the first mass in Nueva Vizcaya was celebrated and the first baptism of a Christian convert was held.
The territories of Nueva Vizcaya were greatly reduced when Nueva Vizcaya ceded a big portion of its north-eastern territory, including Camarag, its first capital, now Echague, to form the province of Isabela in May 1865.