Panama Country Profile

Panama is the southernmost country of Central America. Lying at the crossroads of the North and South American continents and the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, Panama is of immense strategic importance.

Panama has the largest rainforest in the Western Hemisphere outside the Amazon Basin and its jungle is home to an abundance of tropical plants, animals and birds - some of them to be found nowhere else in the world. However, it is for a feat of engineering, a canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, that Panama is famous. Every year hundreds of thousands of people make the eight-hour journey through the waterway and it generates a proportion of the country's GDP.

Full name: Republic of Panama

Population: 3.5 million (UN, 2010)

Capital: Panama City

Area: 75,517 sq km (29,157 sq miles)

Major languages: Spanish, English

Major religion: Christianity

Life expectancy: 74 years (men), 79 years (women) (UN)

Monetary unit: 1 balboa = 100 cents

Main exports: Bananas, fish, shrimp, petroleum products

GNI per capita: US $6,710 (World Bank, 2009)

Internet domain: .pa

International dialing code: +507

President: Ricardo Martinelli

 

Click Here to visit the Embassy Website.