Panama City is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Panama. It has a population of 813,097, with a total metro population of 1,206,792, and it is located at the Pacific entrance of the Panama Canal, at 8°58′N 79°32′W. Panama City is the political and administrative center of the country.

In 1519 Panama City was founded by Pedro Arias de Avila on the Pacific coast. Within years of its founding, the city became a launching point for the exploration and conquest of Peru and a transit point for gold and silver headed towards Spain.  Panama's history has been shaped by its strategic location between the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean. The native Cuevas and Cocole tribes quickly disappeared after the Spanish arrived with their weapons and diseases in the early 16th century. In 1671, the Welsh pirate Henry Morgan, with the help of a band of 1400 men, attacked and looted the city, which was subsequently destroyed by fire. The ruins of the old city still remain and are a popular tourist attraction known as Panamá la Vieja (Old Panama). It was rebuilt in 1673 in a new location approximately 5 miles (8.0 km) southwest of the original city. This location is now known as the Casco Viejo (Old Quarter) of the city.

PANAMA La VIEJA

Panama La Vieja (Old Panama) is the name used for the architectural vestiges of the Monumental Historic Complex of the first Spanish city founded on the Pacific coast of the Americas by Pedro Arias de Avila on 15th August 1519.  

After the first settlement was destroyed by diseases and the pirate attacks, the last and most remembered one by Henry Morgan, the city moved into a rocky peninsula that was both healthier and easier to defend. In 1673 they founded what today is called officially Casco Antiguo, but is also known as San Felipe, Catedral and more commonly, Casco Viejo.  Currently under a revitalisation process, Casco Antiguo is a mix of different architectural styles, which reflects the cultural diversity of the country. Caribbean, Republican, Art Deco, French and Colonial mix in a site of less than 800 buildings.

Most of Panama City's main monuments are located in Casco Antiguo:

The Salón Bolivar, the main Cathedral (Catedral Metropolitana), the National Theatre (founded in 1908), Las Bovedas Monument, La Iglesia de La Merced, La Iglesia San Felipe Neri, Iglesia San José with its distinctive Golden Altar, which was saved from Panama La Vieja and transported into the new city.

This city was the starting point of the expeditions that conquered the Inca Empire in Peru (1532). It was also a stopover point of one of the most important trade routes in the history of the American continent leading to the famous fairs of Nombre de Dios and Portobelo where most of the gold and Silver that Spain took from the Americas passed through.  Panama's Caribbean shore was dotted with so many pirate strongholds that shippers chose instead to sail around Cape Horn to Peru. Panama's importance to the Spanish rapidly declined, and Spain did not contest its inclusion as a province of Colombia when that country won its independence from Spain in 1821.

Two years after the start of the California Gold Rush in 1848, the Panama Railroad Company was formed, but the railroad did not begin operation until 1855. Between 1848 and 1869, the year the first transcontinental railroad was completed in the United States, about 375,000 people crossed the isthmus from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and 225,000 in the opposite direction. That traffic greatly increased the prosperity of the city during that period.

The construction of the Panama Canal was of great benefit to the infrastructure and economy of Panama. Of particular note are the improvements in health and sanitation brought about by the American presence in the Canal Zone. These included the eradication of yellow fever and malaria and the introduction of a first-rate water supply system. However, most of the workers involved in the construction of the canal were brought in from the West Indies, which created unprecedented racial and social tensions in the city.

Balboa, which is located within the greater Panama metropolitan area, was formerly part of the Panama Canal Zone, and in fact the administration of the former Panama Canal Zone was headquartered there. The city of Balboa and the nation's currency, the Panamanian Balboa, are named after the Spanish conquistador and explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa.

During World War II, construction of military bases and the presence of larger numbers of U.S. military and civilian personnel brought about unprecedented levels of prosperity to the city.

Panamanians had limited access, or no access at all, to many areas in the Canal Zone neighboring the Panama metropolitan area. Some of these areas were military bases accessible only to United States personnel. Tensions arose between the people of Panama and the U.S. citizens living in the Panama Canal Zone. This erupted in the January 9, 1964 riots.

In 1968, the commander of the Panamanian National Guard, Omar Torrijos Herrera, seized control of the government. Although he ruled as a populist dictator, Torrijos Herrera is revered as a hero of Panama because he negotiated the treaty with the United States returning the canal and the Canal Zone back to Panama on January 1, 2000.

In the late 1970s through the 1980s Panama became an international banking center, bringing a lot of undesirable attention as an international money-laundering center.  After Torrijos Herrera's death in 1983, General Manuel Noriega became head of the Panama Defense Forces. When Noriega's party lost the 1989 elections, Noriega's cronies physically attacked the winning candidate on national television. Noriega's hold on power was financed from income provided by drug trafficking. In December 1989, Noriega appointed himself dictator and formally declared war against the United States.

President George H. W. Bush ordered the invasion of Panama to depose the previously U.S. backed dictator of Panama. 26,000 troops were deployed into the streets of Panama City and Colón. Thousands died in the fighting.

As a result of the action a portion of the El Chorrillo, a neighborhood which consisted mostly of old wood framed buildings dating back to the 1900s, was destroyed by fire. Eventually, the U.S. helped finance the construction of large cinderblock apartment buildings to replace the destroyed structures.

Noriega claimed asylum in the Vatican Embassy. The Vatican staff finally released Noriega into U.S. custody, partly to stop the assault of loud rock music that U.S. loudspeakers directed at the embassy compound both day and night. Noriega was arrested, tried, and convicted on money laundering charges and was sentenced to prison for 40 years. Panama City remains a major banking center, although with very visible controls against money laundering. Shipping is handled through port facilities in the area of Balboa operated by the Hutchison Whampoa Company of Hong Kong and through several ports on the Caribbean side of the isthmus.

Panama is located between the Pacific Ocean and many tropical rain forests. The Parque Natural Metropolitano (Metropolitan Nature Park), stretching from Panama along the Panama Canal, has several unique bird species and other animals such as tapir, puma, alligators, etc.

At the Pacific entrance of the canal is the Centro de Exhibiciones Marinas (Marine Exhibitions Center), a research center for those interested in tropical marine life and ecology. Centro de Exhibiciones Marinas is managed by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.

Tropical forests around Panama are vital for the functioning of the Panama Canal. These forests provide the canal with the watershed required for its operation (a rare example of a vast engineering project in the middle of the forest which actually helped preserve that very nature).

Nearly 500 rivers lace Panama's rugged landscape. Mostly un-navigable, many originate as swift highland streams, meander in valleys, and form coastal deltas. However, the Río Chagres (Rio Chagres) is one of the few wide rivers and a source of enormous hydroelectric power. The river is located in central Panama. The central part of the river is dammed by the Gatun Dam and forms Gatun Lake, an artificial lake that constitutes part of the Panama Canal. The lake was created between 1907 and 1913 by the building of the Gatun Dam across the Chagres River. At the time it was created, Gatun Lake was the largest man-made lake in the world, and the dam was the largest earth dam. It drains northwest into the Caribbean Sea. The Kampia and Madden Lakes (also filled with water from the Río Chagres) provide hydroelectricity for the area of the former Canal Zone.

The Río Chepo, another source of hydroelectric power, is one of the more than 300 rivers emptying into the Pacific. These Pacific-oriented rivers are longer and slower running than those of the Caribbean side. Their basins are also more extensive. One of the longest is the Río Tuira which flows into the Golfo de San Miguel and is the nation's only river navigable by larger vessels.

Due to the importance of the Canal to the Panamanian economy, tropical forests around the canal have been kept in an almost pristine state.

Along the western side of the Canal is the Parque Nacional Soberania (Sovereignty National Park) which includes Summit botanical gardens and a zoo. In this national park, the best known trail is the Pipeline Road, very popular among birdwatchers.

Panama City experiences a Tropical Equatorial climate with a wet season that stretches from May to December, and a dry season from January to April. Annual temperatures range between 21 °C (70 °F) and 35 °C (95 °F).

Panama currently has more than 110 high-rise projects being constructed, with 127 high-rise buildings already built. It currently holds the 65th place in the world by high rise buildings count. The Centennial Bridge, that crosses the Panama Canal earned the American Segmental Bridge Institute prize of excellence together with 7 other bridges in the Americas.

Panama has a total of more than 80 banks, more than 15 of them being national. The city also boasts several tourist attractions, and is a stopover for other nearby destinations in the country as well as a tourist destination in its own right. The city is also responsible for the production of about 55% of the country's GDP. This because most businesses and premises are located in the city and its metro area. Nowadays tourism is the most important economic activity in terms of revenue generation. The hotel occupancy rate is the 2nd highest (84.7 percent) in the world after Perth, Australia and followed by Dubai (84.5 percent).

One of the most vital and useful tools in construction is the crane. There are a lot of different cranes out there, used for building everything from two or three story steel-skeleton buildings to towering skyscrapers in large cities. Of interesting note is the fact that sometimes cranes can be used for specialised situations that have nothing to do with construction at all. 

In Panama The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute uses construction cranes to study Panama's tropical forest canopy.  

The late Alan P. Smith, a research scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), and STRI engineer Fernando Pascal were the first to develop the idea of using construction cranes to access the forest canopy.

In 1990, Smith rented a construction tower crane for two years, and two years later, a larger crane was permanently installed in the Parque Natural Metropolitano, near Panama City, on the Pacific coast of the Isthmus.

The canopy crane at Parque Natural Metropolitano is located within a lowland semi-deciduous forest on the Pacific coast of the Isthmus. This 80-year-old forest receives on average 1,740 mm of rain per year. The crane is 42 meters tall, with a boom length of 51 meters, and gives access to almost 1 hectare of forest and to approximately 80 species of trees and lianas.

A second crane was installed in 1997 in the San Lorenzo Protected (SLP) Area in a wet evergreen forest on the Caribbean coast. This forest receives about 3,300 mm of rainfall per year. Hence, a steep rainfall gradient occurs between the two crane locations and the species composition of the two forests are very different. The PNSL crane is 52 meters tall with a radius of 54 meters, and can reach approximately 180 species of trees and lianas.

These two canopy access facilities were funded by the Smithsonian Institution and its National Board of Associates and by the governments of Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany and Norway through the clearinghouse mechanism of the United Nations Environment Program. STRI manages the canopy cranes, which represent the core of the Tropical Canopy Biology Program. Visiting researchers are welcome to use the cranes.

The two canopy cranes are 80 km apart from each other. Since there is a steep rainfall gradient from the Pacific to Caribbean coast in Panama, this provides an ideal opportunity to compare the influence of rainfall on different forest processes. The construction cranes lift researchers above the forest in a small gondola and then lower them at desired study sites within the canopy. In this way, the cranes allow safe, easy and three-dimensional access to the forest. The crane operator, who receives orders by radio from the researchers on where to position the gondola, controls the crane movements. The gondola can easily accommodate up to four researchers, including heavy equipment, for hours at a time.

Both cranes are located in forest dynamics plots, in which trees have been mapped, measured and identified. The plot at the Parque Natural Metropolitano crane is 1 ha in area and all trees larger than 10cm in diameter at breast height (DBH) are mapped. The plot at the Parque Nacional San Lorenzo crane is 6 ha in area and all trees larger than 1cm in diameter at breast height (DBH) are mapped.

The canopy crane has two main advantages over other methods of canopy access. First, there is minimal impact on the canopy vegetation. With different gondolas of appropriate sizes and shapes, it is possible to penetrate the canopy from above and access virtually all canopy microsites.

 Secondly, the crane for the first time permits researchers to bring heavy analytical equipment into the forest canopy where living materials can be studied in situ. Thus the crane permits repeatable, nondestructive analytical studies to be done in the canopy. The cranes facilitate in-situ studies on a range of research topics, including plant phenology, pollination biology, the ecophysiology of canopy trees and lianas (including gas exchange, water transport and light limitation), the diversity and feeding behavior of canopy arthropods, biotic interactions, food web ecology, etc. These studies can all take place directly in the canopy.