Sariaya, officially the Municipality of Sariaya (), is a 1st class municipality in the province of Quezon, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 161,868 people. As the only Mount Banahaw town in both Quezon and Laguna Provinces that has a sea coast, the town is famous for its pristine beach resorts and nature-trekking activities that lead adventurous hikers to the peak of mythical Mount Banahaw. With more than a hundred of cultural properties and ancestral houses mostly built in Art Deco architecture within the municipality, Sariaya is considered as the Heritage Town of Quezon and the Art Deco Capital of Southern Luzon. This heritage town has been branded by various cultural experts as a 'cultural gem worthy of a UNESCO designation.' The local government of the municipality with the National Commission for Culture and the Arts of the Philippines were designated to work for the heritage town's inclusion in the UNESCO World Heritage List. With the 2020 census population of almost reaching 161,000, Sariaya is the most populous municipality in the province of Quezon and the 19th most populous municipality in the Philippines. Cityhood might be coming to Sariaya in a matter of years. Etymology The origin of the word Sariaya was allegedly came from the word Sadyaya — one of the town's numerous rivers, but words of the great ancestors and legends have it that it was named after Saria, an supposedly 'illiterate' (according to the Spanish) woman who encountered the first Spaniards in the town who were asking the name of the settlement. Saria can't understand the question as it was in Spanish, which was foreign and unknown to everyone in the area during that time. She was thus branded as illiterate by the Spanish despite being highly educated through Tagalog traditional knowledge. The woman gave her name as answer to the Spanish, assuming that they were asking her name. The Spaniards wrote "Saria" on their notebooks as the name of the settlement. And while the Spaniards were talking with each other, the natives heard them utter the words "Saria-ya". Hence, the words traveled from mouth to mouth and became a common saying until the two words were combined. Geography Sariaya is an inland municipality in the province of Quezon, located south of Metro Manila and from the provincial capital Lucena. The municipality is bordered by Tayabas City on north-east side, the city