Ilihan refers to the strongholds in war-stricken communities of the Philippines before the 20th century. They served as temporary settlements amid rampant piracy and slave raiding during the Spanish Colonial period (16th to 19th centuries CE) and earlier. The ilihan, therefore, became a significant feature of the maritime cultural landscape of the Philippines. Recently, archaeologists recorded potential ilihan sites based on the presence of mounds and hills near waterways and water bodies in areas that experienced raiding episodes, based on archival accounts. This paper, however, charts places already named Ilihan from gazetteers, ethnohistorical records, and archaeological explorations to define the ilihan archaeologically. It highlights the significance of toponyms as markers of historical, social, and political phenomena that are valuable sources for landscape archaeology. Subsequently, this paper examines how the presence of waterways and other topographic factors might have affected the selection of ilihan through analysis using the geographic information system (GIS).