Panama country guide — reading, photographs and map sources Reviewed 23 October 2026 READING The ten illustrated topics and 30 explanatory answers share their reading with Panama's facts course. The linked language lessons teach general Spanish. Geography, history, languages and regional context: https://www.britannica.com/place/Panama https://www.britannica.com/place/Panama/People https://www.britannica.com/place/Panama/History Canal history, 1914 opening, 1977 treaties, 1999 handover and lock operations: https://pancanal.com/en/history-of-the-panama-canal/ https://pancanal.com/en/design-of-the-locks/ https://pancanal.com/en/expansion-program/ Gatún Lake is a freshwater reservoir formed by damming the Chagres River. Annual transit totals and world-trade shares are not permanent facts. Territorial administration and six comarcas, with different arrangements: https://www.educapanama.edu.pa/?q=node/16428 https://www.educapanama.edu.pa/?q=articulos-educativos/articulos/ubicacion-y-paisaje-geografico-de-nuestras-comarcas Naso Tjër Di was created by Law 188 of 4 December 2020. The map has fourteen non-overlapping targets: ten provinces plus Guna Yala, Emberá-Wounaan, Ngäbe Buglé and Naso Tjër Di. Madugandí and Wargandí are described in the reading, but are not separate targets; they remain inside the Panamá and Darién province areas respectively. Do not infer identical administrative status for all six. Congo ritual and festive heritage (UNESCO inscription in 2018, not 2017): https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/ritual-and-festive-expressions-of-the-congo-culture-01383 Sombrero pintao craft (2017): https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/artisanal-processes-and-plant-fibers-techniques-for-talcos-crinejas-and-pintas-weaving-of-the-pinta-o-hat-01272 The Panamanian sombrero pintao differs from the Ecuadorian toquilla-straw hat marketed as a Panama hat. Economy, services, opportunity and inequality: https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/panama/overview Constitution and National Assembly: https://www.asamblea.gob.pa/Page/constituciones https://asamblea.gob.pa/Page/OrganoLegislativo/Historia The guide describes institutions, not current officeholders. Natural World Heritage properties: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/159/ — Darién National Park https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/205/ — Talamanca Range-La Amistad https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1138/ — Coiba and its marine protection zone The Gulf of Chiriquí as a whole is not equated with a single marine park. Historic sites and World Heritage chronology: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1582/ — Colonial Transisthmian Route (2025) https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/135/ — Portobelo-San Lorenzo (1980) Panamá Viejo was inscribed in 1997 and Casco Antiguo added in 2003. UNESCO's current wider serial property is the Colonial Transisthmian Route of Panamá, inscribed in 2025. El Caño's pre-Columbian burials are not Panamá Viejo's Spanish colonial ruins. https://visitcanaldepanama.com/es/sitios-de-interes/calzada-de-amador-o-causeway/ The Amador Causeway reaches Naos, Perico, Culebra and Flamenco, not Taboga. Food and regional traditions: https://es.tourismpanama.com/cultura-cocina/gustos-de-panama/ https://www.tourismpanama.com/culture-cuisine/ People and a dated census count: https://www.inec.gob.pa/Publicaciones/Default2.aspx?ID_CATEGORIA=19&ID_SUBCATEGORIA=71 https://www.inec.gob.pa/archivos/P053342420231009161532Comentarios_Poblacion%20RFB%202023%20VF.pdf The 2023 census enumerated 4,064,780 people. This is not an undated population estimate. Mariano Rivera grew up in Puerto Caimito and was born in Panama City. https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-famers/rivera-mariano QUIZ REVIEW 23 read-time corrections preserve stored lesson/question IDs and progress. They fix English-language status, Ngäbere/Buglere distinctions, the Congo inscription date, currency wording, Casco Antiguo's date, Gatún's formation, El Caño/Panamá Viejo confusion, the causeway islands and Rivera's upbringing. Undated rankings, annual figures and ambiguous food and wildlife choices are replaced with stable questions. The committed fixture captures all 80 live questions, whose prompts, choices and correct answers match the unchanged seed-americas-batch4.mjs. No database writes or seed changes are involved. PHOTOGRAPHS Ten existing local photographs in /images/facts-north-america/pa/ retain their individual photographer, licence and Commons source links in src/lib/north-american-facts-heroes.json. The geography banner shows Guna Yala; its pin indicates the region, not a verified camera position. The nature photo shows a resplendent quetzal; the text distinguishes it from the national bird, the harpy eagle. No new generated photographs are used. PROVINCE / COMARCA GEOMETRY — CC BY-SA 4.0 Panama Provinces Boundaries - 2024. National Geographic Institute "Tommy Guardia" (IGNTG). [Dataset]. STRI GIS Data Portal. Accessed 23 October 2026. https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=b4c6ce7c427c43c4b9599b80f6b863fd https://services2.arcgis.com/HRY6x8qt5qjGnAA9/arcgis/rest/services/Panama_Province_Boundaries_2024/FeatureServer/0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ The publisher's item metadata explicitly applies Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International. The source incorporates Naso Tjër Di. Snapshot: scripts/panama-admin-source.geojson. The ArcGIS query uses WGS84, maxAllowableOffset=0.00015 and geometryPrecision=6. The builder normalises names and codes, repairs invalid geometry, removes non-polygon repair remnants, simplifies to 0.0002 degrees and rounds coordinates to six decimal places. The derivative public/panama-regions.geojson is distributed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Marine answer areas clipped using these boundaries, in panama-waters.geojson, are also distributed under CC BY-SA 4.0 with the same attribution. NATURAL EARTH GEOMETRY — PUBLIC DOMAIN Gatún Lake, the canal centerlines and Santa María River (labelled "Santa Mara" in the source) come from Natural Earth 1:10m lakes and rivers. Natural Earth 1:10m admin-1 polygons provide surrounding land in Panama, Costa Rica and Colombia. Sources retrieved 23 October 2026: https://www.naturalearthdata.com/about/terms-of-use/ https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvkelso/natural-earth-vector/master/geojson/ne_10m_admin_1_states_provinces.geojson https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvkelso/natural-earth-vector/master/geojson/ne_10m_rivers_lake_centerlines.geojson https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvkelso/natural-earth-vector/master/geojson/ne_10m_lakes.geojson Snapshots: scripts/panama-context-land-source.geojson and scripts/panama-water-source.geojson. Water geometry retains source properties. Linear targets are clipped near Panama's land. Canal segments beneath the Gatún Lake polygon are removed to keep answers distinct. The canal is an engineered waterway, grouped with rivers only for the game's line rendering. CITY PINS AND SEA AREAS Eighteen curated settlement pins cover the ten provincial capitals and eight other towns. They mark settlement centres, not municipality extents. Bocas del Toro's capital is on Isla Colón; Panamá Oeste's capital is La Chorrera. Five curated sea learning areas distinguish the Caribbean, open Pacific and three Pacific gulfs. The Gulf of San Miguel target is excluded from the wider Gulf of Panama answer; all sea answer areas are mutually exclusive. Land and linear water targets are removed from sea areas. These generalised maps are learning references, not maritime boundaries, navigation charts, official boundary determinations, conservation boundaries or current water levels. OFFLINE REPRODUCTION With Python and Shapely 2 installed: python3 scripts/build-panama-maps.py The three source snapshots reproduce the public region, city and water maps, the atlas pack and the place-name registry without network or database access.