Panama city

The City of Panama was founded by Pedro Arias Dávila on August 15, 1519, constituting the first city on continental ground of the “new world.” Built by the Spanish on the Pacific Ocean two years later, on September 15, 1521, Panama became a City through a Royal Decree conferred by His Majesty Carlos V of Spain, with which it also received a coat of arms. The City was seized and destroyed by Henry Morgan in 1671, to be then relocated in 1673 to the area known today as Casco Viejo (Old Quarter.) Panama City has been traditionally the political, economic, administrative and cultural center of the Republic. Its history is closely linked to the construction of one of the marvels of engineering of the Twentieth Century: The Panama Canal.


The City is a dazzling mixture of Panama La Vieja (Old Panama), the colonial and the modern city. The daily hurries and commercial activity of the region’s largest and busiest commercial center make a great contrast with the silence and quietness of the Ruins of Old Panama. From the city wall at the Old Quarter you can witness the contrast between history and modern civilization: the tallest buildings in Central America, the Pacific entrance to the canal, the bridge of the Americas and the Coastway, which joins three small islands to continental soil.