History

There is hardly another place in the world, as a Panama [1] historian once pointed out, where so much has happened yet left so little trace behind. The jungle swallowed up whole civilizations, and grave-robbers made away with the crumbs.

But some of the earliest evidence of human habitation in the Americas has been found in Panama. Remarkably advanced cultures flourished millennia after that. And since Spanish explorers discovered the isthmus, it has played an important role in determining the shape of the modern world.

Over the last 500 years, Panama helped establish Spain and the United States as great world powers, nearly bankrupted France, and forced Scotland to give up its sovereignty and become part of the United Kingdom.