Panama City, Florida

Panama City (Spanish: Ciudad de Panamá), population 708,738, with a total metro population of 1,063,000 is the capital of Panama, located at the Pacific entrance of the Panama Canal.

East Bay Panama City Florida. Photo credit: choicegrap. Check out more photos of all our featured destinations in our photo gallery.

Spring Break

Coming soon.

Hotels and Restaurants

In recent years there has been huge development of beach hotels. Farther afield, visitors can travel to beaches in the interior, Bocas del Toro and the Archipiélago de las Perlas in the Gulf of Panama (where Survivor (TV series) has filmed 3 seasons).

Visitors who wish to experience more of the local atmosphere are advised to look for accommodations nearer the commercial and financial center of the city, that is the neighborhoods of Bella Vista, Marbella or El Cangrejo. For the tighter budgets Casco Viejo is a better option. In the neighborhood known as Bella Vista, Calle Uruguay is home to Panama's newest cosmopolitan restaurants among them La Rioja, Bistro 10, Peperoncini and La Posta. The city is also growing as a haven for seniors of the United States due to low tax incentives and a tropical climate. The demand for space in Panama City has sparked a construction boom and architecturally beautiful skyscrapers are being to built as condos to supply the number of people entering the city. Two new buildings include the Palacio De La Bahia and the Ice Tower of which both are to top 1,000 feet high and will add more beauty to the city's already dense skyline.

Look for our full directory of hotels and restaurants, coming soon.

Clubs and Bars

Look for our full directory of clubs, coming soon.

Attractions and Events

The city has numerous tourist attractions including world-class hotels and restaurants. Of particular interest to tourists are various sites located in the Casco Viejo, including:

• Las Bóvedas, literally The Vaults, a waterfront promenade jutting out into the Pacific
• The National Institute of Culture Building and across from it, the French Embassy
• The Cathedral on Plaza de la Catedral
• Teatro Nacional, a recently renovated performance center, with outstanding natural acoustics; It provides an intimate performance environment, seating about 800 guests.
• Museo del Canal Interoceánico (InterOceanic Canal Museum)
• Numerous restaurants located near the French embassy
• Palacio de las Garzas (Heron's Palace), the official name of the presidential palace. There actually are Herons in the compound.

Further Southwest one can climb the Ancon Hill for an overview of the city and beyond that is the fairly well-known bridge that spans the Panama Canal, the Bridge of the Americas. A new attraction is the new bridge over the Panama Canal, the Centennial Bridge.

Relocated on a brand new location, on the entrance of Curundu Heights, on former Panama Canal Zone is the Museo Antropológico Reina Torres de Araúz (Reina Torres de Arauz Anthropologycal Museum) — best know by its Spanish acronym MARTA — with precious metal artifacts from pre-columbian Panama.

Tourism

The area immediately east of the Pacific entrance of the canal -- known as the Amador Causeway -- is currently being developed as a major tourist center with many North-American style malls, hotels, discos and restaurants. Currently the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute operates a station and a small museum open to the public on Culebra Island, just off the island of Naos. The noted American architect Frank Gehry known for the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum and the Disney Concert Center in Los Angeles, has designed a structure which will be built in this area. The structure, called The Bridge of Life museum is scheduled to be completed in 2007.

Unfortunately, the waters in the coast of the city are polluted, and bathing in them is not allowed. However there are beaches available nearby. The closest is the Playa Bonita Complex, right next to the city, crossing the Bridge of the Americas. There are also many more beaches, in the Pacific and Caribbean side (one of the advantages of Panama is the possibility of bathing in two oceans easily, as they are just hours apart).

Climate

Coming soon.

History and Development

The city was founded on August 15, 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. In 1671 Henry Morgan with a band of 1400 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 la Vieja (Old Panama). It was rebuilt in 1673 in a new location about 5 miles west-southwest of the original city. This location is now known as the Casco Viejo or Old Hull of the city.

Discovery of gold in California in 1848 led to an upsurge in travellers crossing the isthmus en route to the west coast of North America. The year before the discovery of gold, the Panama Railroad Company was formed, but the railroad did not begin operation until 1855[2]. Between 1848 and 1869, the year the first transcontinental railroad was completed in the United States, about 375,000 persons crossed the isthmus from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and 225,000 in the opposite direction. That traffic greatly increased the prosperity of the city during that period.

Not surprisingly, construction of the Panama Canal was of great benefit to the infrastructure and massive grow operations. Of particular note are the improvements in health and sanitation brought about by the American presence in the Canal Zone. These include the eradication of yellow fever and malaria and the introduction of a first-rate water supply system. 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 fledgling city.

During World War II, construction of military bases and the presence of larger numbers of U.S. military and civilian personnel brought about unprecedented levels of prosperity to the city. Panamanians had limited access, or no access at all, to many areas in the Canal Zone neighboring the Panama City metropolitan area. Some of these areas were military bases accessible only to United States personnel. Some tensions arose between the people of Panama and the U.S. citizens living in the Panama Canal Zone. This erupted in the January 9, 1964 events, known as Martyrs' Day.

In the late 1970s and through the 1980s Panama City became an international banking center bringing along with it a lot of undesirable attention as an international money-laundering center. In 1989 after nearly a year of tension between the United States and Panama, President George H. Bush ordered the invasion of Panama to depose the leader of Panama, General Manuel Noriega. As a result of the action a portion of the El Chorrillo neighborhood, which consisted mostly of old wood-framed buildings dating back to the 1900s (though still a large slum area), was destroyed by fire. Eventually, the U. S. helped finance the construction of large cinderblock apartment buildings to replace the destroyed structures. Panama City remains a banking center, although with very visible controls in the flow of cash. Shipping is handled through port facilities in the area of Balboa operated by the Hutchison Whampoa Company of Hong Kong and through several ports on the Caribbean side of the isthmus. Balboa, which is located within the greater Panama City metropolitan area, was formerly part of the Panama Canal Zone, and in fact the administration of the former Panama Canal Zone was headquartered there.

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