Datu Abedin (city) (21st Century Crisis)

Datu Abedin, officially the City of Datu Abedin (Cebuano: Dakbayan sa Datu Abedin, Maguindanaon: Kuta sa Datu Abedin, Filipino: Lungsod ng Datu Abedin, Spanish: Ciuded de Datu Abedin, Malay: Kota Dato Abedin) is previously known as General Santos City, and abbreviated D.A or DaAb, is the southernmost city in the Philippines. Classified as a highly urbanized first class city, Datu Abedin is the 15th most populous city in the country with 594,446 inhabitants as per 2015 census. Datu Abedin is the regional center for commerce and industry of the Soccsksargen region, and geographically located within the province of South Kota Batu but administered independent of it.

The city is named after Datu Sharif Zainal Abedin, an influential Arab mestizo married to a daughter of a very influential datu of lower Buayan—as the first district municipal mayor of Barangay Lagao.

The predominant religion in the city is Christianity, with the largest denomination being the Catholic Church, comprising about 55% percent of the population, some 3 percent self-identified as belonging to one of several Protestant churches, including the Aglipayan Church, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Jehovah's Witnesses, and various Alliance, Baptist, Born Again, Church of God, Evangelical, Methodist and Pentecostal groups. Included also in this percentage is the Iglesia ni Cristo. Islam forms a large and significant minority, at 41% with the rest belonging to Animist and Pagan tribal groups.