Panama

The Panama Canal — opened in 1914 after a decade of construction overseen by the United States — enables ships to transit between the Atlantic and Pacific without rounding Cape Horn, reducing a journey of over 20,000 kilometres to a passage of 80 kilometres. Control of the Canal was transferred from the United States to Panama on December 31, 1999, in a handover that remains one of the most significant diplomatic events in 20th-century hemispheric relations. A major expansion of the Canal, completed in 2016, doubled its capacity and opened it to the largest modern container ships.

Panama City is the financial capital of Central America and one of the most prosperous cities in the region, its skyline of glass towers rising beside the Pacific entrance to the Canal. The country's dollarized economy, political stability, and strategic location have attracted international banking, shipping logistics, and insurance industries. Panama also hosts one of the largest free trade zones in the world, the Colón Free Trade Zone. The Darién Gap — the break in the Pan-American Highway where Panama meets Colombia — is one of the most remote and challenging terrains in the hemisphere.