Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is a country in Latin America at the southern end of Central America , bordering South America . It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the south. Its capital and largest city is Panama City , whose metropolitan area is home to nearly half of the country's over 4 million inhabitants.0
Before the arrival of Spanish colonists in the 16th century, Panama was inhabited by a number of different indigenous tribes . It broke away from Spain in 1821 and joined the Republic of Gran Colombia , a union of Nueva Granada , Ecuador , and Venezuela . After Gran Colombia dissolved in 1831, Panama and Nueva Granada eventually became the Republic of Colombia. With the backing of the United States, Panama seceded from Colombia in 1903, allowing the construction of the Panama Canal to be completed by the United States Army Corps of Engineers between 1904 and 1914. The 1977 Torrijos–Carter Treaties agreed to transfer the canal from the United States to Panama on December 31, 1999. The surrounding territory was returned first, in 1979.
Revenue from canal tolls has continued to represent a significant portion of Panama's GDP , especially after the Panama Canal expansion project (finished in 2016) doubled its capacity. Commerce, banking, and tourism are major sectors. Panama is regarded as having a high-income economy . In 2019, Panama ranked 57th in the world in terms of the Human Development Index . In 2018, Panama was ranked the seventh-most competitive economy in Latin America, according to the World Economic Forum 's Global Competitiveness Index. Panama was ranked 84th in the Global Innovation Index in 2023. Covering around 40 percent of its land area, Panama's jungles are home to an abundance of tropical plants and animals – some of them found nowhere else on earth.
Panama is a founding member of the United Nations and other international organizations such as the Organization of American States , Latin America Integration Association , Group of 77 , World Health Organization , and Non-Aligned Movement . (Full article... )
Map showing the shrinking territory of Gran Colombia from 1824 (colored areas, including Venezuela and Ecuador ) to 1890 (red line) and the Cundinamarca region . Panama seceded in 1903 from Colombia , and comprises the yellow area in the Central American isthmus.
The separation of Panama from Colombia was formalized on 3 November 1903, with the establishment of the Republic of Panama . From the Independence of Panama from Spain in 1821, Panama had simultaneously declared independence from Spain and joined itself to the confederation of Gran Colombia through the Independence Act of Panama . Panama was always tenuously connected to the rest of the country to the south, owing to its remoteness from the government in Bogotá and lack of a practical overland connection to the rest of Gran Colombia. In 1840–41, a short-lived independent republic was established under Tomás de Herrera . After rejoining Colombia following a 13-month independence, it remained a province which saw frequent rebellious flare-ups, notably the Panama crisis of 1885 , which saw the intervention of the United States Navy , and a reaction by the Chilean Navy .
During the
construction of the Panama Canal , the initial attempts by France to construct a sea-level canal across the isthmus were secured through treaty with Colombia; however French cost overruns and corruption in the
Panama scandals led to abandonment of the canal for a decade. During the intervening years, local separatists used the political instability of the
Thousand Days' War to agitate for political separation from Colombia and establishment of an independent republic. When the United States sought to take over the canal project, the government of Colombia proved difficult to work with, and with the cooperation of French financier
Philippe-Jean Bunau-Varilla , Panama simultaneously declared independence from Colombia and negotiated a
treaty granting the U.S. the right to construct the canal . (
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That Panama is the most globalized country in Latin America and has the highest number of investments by Americans and Europeans, which accounts for at least 4.5 billions dollars?
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