Panama is formally the Republic of Panama, a transcontinental country in Central America and South America, bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north, as well as the Pacific Ocean to the south. Its funding and largest city is Panama City, whose metropolitan area is house to almost half the country’s 4 million people.

Panama was populated by indigenous people prior to Spanish colonists gotten here in the 16th century. It escaped from Spain in 1821 as well as joined the Republic of Grandma Colombia, a union of Nueva Granada, Ecuador, as well as Venezuela. After Grandma Colombia liquified in 1831, Panama as well as Nueva Granada ultimately ended up being the Republic of Colombia.

With the support of the United States, Panama withdrew from Colombia in 1903, allowing the construction of the Panama Canal to be finished by the United States Military Corps of Engineers in 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 bordering area was first returned in 1979.

Income from canal tolls continues to represent a considerable section of Panama’s GDP, although commerce, financial, and tourist are major as well as expanding industries. It is considered as having a high-income economy. In 2019 Panama ranked 57th worldwide in terms of the Human Growth Index. In 2018, Panama was ranked the seventh-most competitive economic climate in Latin America, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index.

Covering around 40 percent of its acreage, Panama’s jungles are house to a wealth of exotic plants and also animals– several of them discovered no place else on earth. Panama is a founding member of the United Nations and other global organizations such as OAS, LAIA, G77, THAT, as well as NAM.