Panama

Panama City serves as the political, cultural and economic heart of Panama, positioned in Central America. As the seat of government and often the most populous city, it concentrates the country's main institutions, universities and cultural landmarks. Beyond the capital, major cities include Colón, David, La Chorrera — each a hub of regional culture, economy and history. Panama City is Central America's only true skyscraper city — a financial centre of glass towers visible from the Pacific whose economy since 1903 has been organised around the canal that the United States built, controlled until 1977, and finally transferred to Panamanian sovereignty in 1999 in a handover that Panamanians celebrate as their defining national achievement.

With a population of approximately 4.4M, Panama is a vibrant society with a rich mix of traditions and communities. The official language is Spanish, which reflects the country's cultural heritage and connects it with a wide international community. Internationally, Panama is reached via the dialling code +507. Panamanians built a national identity around the canal — the 77-kilometre waterway that allows a ship to move between oceans in 8-10 hours rather than the 20,000-kilometre Cape Horn route — while managing the extraordinary ethnic diversity created by the canal's labour recruitment: Antillean workers from Barbados and Jamaica, Chinese workers, and immigrants from South America and Europe creating one of the Americas' most mixed populations.

Panama spans 75,417 km², in the Central America subregion of Americas. Geographically centred around 9.0°N, 80.0°W, the country offers a diverse range of landscapes shaped by its location, climate and geology. Road traffic follows the right-hand rule, in line with surrounding Americas convention.

The official currency is the Panamanian balboa (B/.), United States dollar ($), used for everyday transactions and commerce throughout the country. Panama's economy is shaped by its geography, natural resources and trade relationships. Business and daily life operate under UTC-05:00, aligning the country with its regional neighbours.

Baseball / Football holds a special place in the heart of Panama's national identity. Baseball is Panama's dominant sport rather than football — a legacy of American canal zone culture that produced Roberto Durán (boxing, considered one of the greatest fighters in history) and Mariano Rivera (baseball, Baseball Hall of Fame), two athletes who became cultural heroes representing Panama's capacity to produce world-class competition talent from a country of 4 million.

The highest point in Panama is Volcán Barú, rising to 3,475 metres above sea level. The Darien Gap — the 87-kilometre break in the Pan-American Highway between Panama and Colombia — is one of the world's most ecologically intact tropical wilderness areas, a combination of rainforest, swamp, and coastal ecosystems that has resisted road building for 60 years, sheltering harpy eagles, jaguars, and the indigenous Emberá and Guna communities whose territorial rights the road's absence inadvertently protects.