History

Pedrarias Dávila, the Spanish governor of Castilla del Oro, founded Panamá — “place of many fish” in the indigenous Cueva language — on 15 August 1519 CE on the Pacific coast of the isthmus. The choice of location was strategic: it commanded the mouth of the Camino Real overland route that connected the Pacific coast to the Caribbean port of Nombre de Dios (later Portobelo), making it the natural depot and staging post for the entire Pacific enterprise of the Spanish empire.

The city’s importance exploded in 1532 CE when Francisco Pizarro, using Panama as his base, launched his conquest of the Inca Empire. The silver of Potosí and the gold of the Andes flowed through Panama; by the mid-16th century it was the wealthiest city on the Pacific coast of the Americas, with a cathedral, convents, hospitals, a courthouse, and the palaces of merchants and governors. Its population at its peak has been estimated at 10,000–15,000 people — extraordinary for a colonial city of that era.

On 9 January 1671 CE, Henry Morgan — the Welsh buccaneer operating under a commission from the English governor of Jamaica — reached Panama after crossing the isthmus with 1,400 men from Portobelo. After a battle at the outskirts, the Spanish garrison set fire to the city rather than surrender it intact. The ruins were abandoned; a new, more easily defended city was founded 8 km to the southwest on a narrow peninsula in 1673 CE, with the sea protecting three sides.

The rebuilt city — today’s Casco Antiguo or San Felipe — grew steadily through the colonial period. A second wave of construction came in the 1880s during the French attempt to build the Panama Canal; French engineers, merchants, and administrators built elegant Second Empire townhouses that still line the streets alongside 17th-century Spanish churches. The canal project ultimately failed; the American-built Canal opened in 1914 CE, making Panama City one of the world’s great crossroads once again.