Panama City

About Panama City

Panama City sits on the Pacific side of the Panama Canal, with ships docking at Fuerte Amador on a causeway linking three small islands to the mainland. The skyline across the bay mixes colonial Casco Viejo with modern glass towers. Highlights include Casco Viejo's restored cathedrals and plazas, the Miraflores Locks visitor center, and the Frank Gehry BioMuseo. Full-transit Canal cruises also call here before or after lock passage.

• Panama City was founded on 15 August 1519 by Spanish conquistador Pedro Arias Dávila, making it the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement on the Pacific coast of the Americas.
• In 1671, privateer Henry Morgan sacked and burned the original city to the ground; it was rebuilt two years later about 8 km away on a new peninsula — the ruins of 'Panama Viejo' are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
• The city sits at the Pacific entrance to the Panama Canal, which opened in 1914 and transformed global shipping by eliminating the need to sail around Cape Horn.
• Panama City served as the staging point for Spanish expeditions that conquered the Inca Empire of Peru, and most of the gold and silver mined in the Americas passed through the city en route to Spain.
• The Panama City metropolitan area has over 2.1 million people and is one of the most important banking and financial centers in Latin America, earning it the nickname 'the Singapore of the Americas'.