Our first featured sight from the new satellite images is the Academic Oval of the University of the Philippines, Diliman. (Okay, so I’m a proud alumnus.) The Acad Oval consists of the Osmeña, Roxas, and Ma. Regidor avenues and it surrounds The Oblation, Quezon Hall (aka Admin), the U.P. Lagoon, Gonzalez Hall (aka the Main Libe), and the Sunken Garden (supposedly officially called the Gen. Antonio Luna Parading Grounds). Around the Acad Oval are the colleges and schools of Mass Communication, Music, Engineering, Law, Economics, Business Administration, Education, Social Science and Philosophy, and Arts and Letters.

The Acad Oval is the central activity area of the whole U.P. Diliman campus. All of the six U.P. jeepney routes pass along portions of the oval and the oval becomes a virtual family park on Sundays when Roxas and Osmeña are closed to vehicular traffic. You can almost always see joggers going around the oval and quite a lot of people sit in and around the Sunken Garden area.

Some Acad Oval trivia (not all certified true) usually given to the incoming freshmen:

• The Acad Oval is 2.2 kilometers long.
• There are 16 humps around the oval.
• There are 281 acacia trees lining the oval, 109 on the outer lane

• The lampposts on the oval light up at 6 p.m.
• The western end of the oval is Kilometer 14 while the eastern end is Kilometer 15.

Download KML file (for Google Earth)