City of Isabela

It is also colloquially known as Isabela de Basilan to differentiate the city's name from the province of Isabela in Luzon.

While administratively the island province of Basilan is part of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), Isabela, which previously served as its capital since the province's creation, itself is not part of this region, being placed instead under the Zamboanga Peninsula region. While the city is still regulated by the Basilan provincial government and provincial services are provided by Basilan, regional services are provided by the Zamboanga Peninsula regional government. The Philippine Statistics Authority lists Isabela as statistically independent from Basilan. This prompted the provincial government to transfer the capital to Lamitan.

Institutionally, the military has played a major part in Isabela's and Basilan's volatile history, due to the ongoing conflicts borne out of the Moro secessionist wars of the 1970s, and more recently, by Al-Qaeda backed Islamic fundamentalist groups fomenting a running gun-battle with the Armed Forces of the Philippines for more than a decade.