It was a stopover point on one of the most important trade routes in the American continent, leading to the fairs of Nombre de Dios and Portobelo, through which passed most of the gold and silver that Spain mined from the Americas.

The city was formally reestablished two years later on 21 January 1673, on a peninsula located 8 km (5 miles) from the original settlement.

Between 1848 and 1869, the year the first transcontinental railroad was completed in the United States, about 375,000 people crossed the isthmus from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and 225,000 in the opposite direction.

After declaring independence from Colombia on 3 November 1903, Philippe Bunau-Varilla (a French engineer) was named Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary.

Bunau-Varilla negotiated the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty of 1903, which provided the United States with a 10-mile-wide strip of land for the canal, a one-time $10 million payment to Panama, and an annual annuity of $250,000.

He hypothesized that diseases were spread by the abundance of mosquitos native to the area, and ordered the fumigation of homes and the cleansing of water.

[16] However, most of the laborers for the construction of the canal were brought in from the Caribbean, which created unprecedented racial and social tensions in the city.

As a result, a portion of the El Chorrillo neighborhood, which consisted mostly of old wood-framed buildings dating back to the 1900s (though still a large slum area), was destroyed by fire.

Along the western side of the canal is the Parque Nacional Soberanía (Sovereignty National Park), which includes the Summit botanical gardens and a zoo.

Sunshine is subdued in Panama because it lies in the Intertropical Convergence Zone, where there is a nearly continual cloud formation, even during the dry season.

San Felipe and twelve other corregimientos form the urban center of the city, including Santa Ana, El Chorrillo, Calidonia, Curundú, Ancón, Bella Vista, Bethania, San Francisco, Juan Diaz, Pueblo Nuevo, Parque Lefevre, and Río Abajo.

As the economic and financial center of the country, Panama City's economy is service-based, heavily weighted toward banking, commerce, and tourism.

[25] The economy depends significantly on trade and shipping activities associated with the Panama Canal and port facilities located in Balboa.

Panama's status as a convergence zone for capital from around the world due to the canal helped the city establish itself as a prime location for offshore banking and tax planning.

[26] The city has benefited from significant economic growth in recent years, mainly due to the ongoing expansion of the Panama Canal, an increase in real estate investment, and a relatively stable banking sector.

This sector of the economy has seen a great deal of growth since the transfer of the Panama Canal Zone at the end of the twentieth century.

In 2018 it was renamed The Bahia Grand Panama following falling occupancy rates associated with the declining brand value of the Trump name.

[40] There is a great deal of cultural diversity within the city, which manifests itself in the wide variety of languages commonly spoken, such as German, Portuguese, French, Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew and English, in addition to Spanish.

[29] Panamá Viejo ("Old Panama")[41] is the name used for the architectural vestiges of the Monumental Historic Complex of the first Spanish city founded on the Pacific coast of the Americas by Pedro Arias de Ávila on 15 August 1519.

It was a stopover point on one of the most important trade routes in the history of the American continent, leading to the famous fairs of Nombre de Dios and Portobelo, where most of the gold and silver that Spain took from the Americas passed through.

[42] Built and settled in 1671 after the destruction of Panama Viejo by the privateer Henry Morgan, the historic district of Panama City (known as Casco Viejo, Casco Antiguo or San Felipe) was conceived as a walled city to protect its settlers against future pirate attacks.

Most of Panama City's main monuments are located in Casco Antiguo, including the Salón Bolivar, the National Theater (founded in 1908), Las Bóvedas, and Plaza de Francia.

Much of the controversy surrounding the project involved the possibility that Casco Viejo would lose its World Heritage status.

Some authors born in Panamá city are Manuel María Ayala (1785–1824), Amelia Denis de Icaza (1836–1911), Darío Herrera (1870–1914), Ricardo Miró (1883–1940), Gaspar Octavio Hernández (1893–1918), Demetrio Korsi (1899–1957), Ricardo Bermúdez (1914–2000), Joaquín Beleño (1921–88), Ernesto Endara (1932–), Diana Morán (1932–87), Rosa María Britton (1936-2019), José Córdova (1937–), Pedro Rivera (1939–), Moravia Ochoa López (1941–), Roberto Fernández Iglesias (1941–), Juan David Morgan (1942 –), Jarl Ricardo Babot (1946–), Giovanna Benedetti (1949–), Édgar Soberón Torchia (1951-), Manuel Orestes Nieto (1951–), Moisés Pascual (1955–), Nyra Soberón Torchia (1955-), Héctor Miguel Collado (1960–), David Robinson Orobio (1960–), Katia Chiari (1969–), Carlos Oriel Wynter Melo (1971–), José Luis Rodríguez Pittí (1971–), Arturo Wong Sagel (1980–) and Sofía Santim (1982–).

The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute operates a station and a small museum open to the public at Culebra Point on the island of Naos.

It was designed by the American architect Frank Gehry, famous for the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.

There were plans (proposed by Panamanian president Juan Carlos Varela) to build in Amador a campus for the embassy of the People's Republic of China in Panama, however the plans were eventually dropped, due to criticism from the general public and fears that tourists could easily assume that Panama was Chinese territory.

These sports have produced famous athletes such as Roberto Durán, Rommel Fernández, Rolando Blackman, Julio Dely Valdés, Mariano Rivera, and Rod Carew.

In an attempt to curb traffic jams, the Panama Metro, initially 14 km (9 mi) long and funded an increase in taxes, began operation in 2014.

The terminal receives thousands of passengers daily from locations like David, Chiriqui, and the central provinces of Herrera and Los Santos.