Panama City

Panama City, also known as Panama, is the capital and largest city of Panama. It has a total population of 410,354 in the city proper and 1,086,990 in the Panama District, which includes the outer corregimientos of the city. The metropolitan area has over 2,100,000 people. The city is located at the Pacific entrance of the Panama Canal, in the province of Panama. The city is the political and administrative center of the country, as well as a hub for banking and commerce.

The city of Panama was founded on 15 August 1519, by Spanish conquistador Pedro Arias Dávila. The city was the starting point for expeditions that conquered the Inca Empire of Peru. 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.

On 28 January 1671, the original city was destroyed by a fire when the privateer Henry Morgan sacked and set fire to it. The city was formally reestablished two years later on 21 January 1673, on a peninsula located 8 km (5 miles) from the original settlement. The site of the previously devastated city is still in ruins, and is now a World Heritage Site and popular tourist attraction, regularly visited by school trips.

The city was founded on 15 August 1519, by Pedro Arias de Ávila, also known as Pedrarias Dávila. Within a few years of its founding, the city became a launching point for the exploration and conquest of Peru and a transit point for gold and silver headed back to Spain through the Isthmus. The Genoese-Italians and the Spanish encountered coconuts from the Philippines which the Malayo-Polynesians brought before Spanish colonization. In 1520, Genoese merchants controlled the port and the commerce of the region, mainly for the slave trade, thanks to a concession given by the Spaniards, who had the Republic of Genoa as its main banking base.

In 1671 Henry Morgan with a band of 1,400 men attacked and looted the city, which was subsequently destroyed by fire. The ruins of the old city still remain and are a popular tourist attraction known as Panamá Viejo (Old Panama). The city was rebuilt in 1673 in a new location approximately 5 miles (8 km) southwest of the original city. This location is now known as the Casco Viejo (Old Quarter) of the city. Panama City is the fourth earliest-founded of the modern-day capital cities in the Americas.^{[citation needed]}

One year before the start of the California Gold Rush, the Panama Railroad Company was formed, but the railroad did not begin full operation until 1855. 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. This traffic greatly increased the prosperity of the city during that period.

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. The United States also agreed to guarantee the independence of Panama. Completed in 1914, the Panama Canal symbolized U.S. technological prowess and economic power. Although U.S. control of the canal eventually became an irritant to U.S.-Panamanian relations, at the time it was heralded as a major foreign policy achievement.

The construction of the Panama Canal was of great benefit to the infrastructure and economy. Of particular note are the improvements in health and sanitation brought about by the American presence in the Canal Zone. William Gorgas, the chief sanitary officer for the canal construction, had a particularly large impact. 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. This led to yellow fever being eradicated by November 1905, as well malaria rates falling dramatically. 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.