Central America.

GMT - 5.

75,517 sq km (29,157 sq miles).

3.2 million (UN, 2005).

42.3 per sq km.

Panama City. Population: 827,828 (2005).

Panama forms the land link between the North and South American continents. Panama borders Colombia to the east, Costa Rica to the west, and the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean to the north and south. The country forms an S-shaped isthmus which runs east–west over a total length of 772km (480 miles) and is 60 to 177km (37 to 110 miles) wide. The landscape is mountainous with lowlands on both coastlines cut by streams, wooded slopes and a wide area of savannah-covered plains and rolling hills called El Interior between the Azuero peninsula and the Central Mountains. The Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean are linked by the man-made Panama Canal, cut into a gap between the Cordillera de Talamanca and the San Blas mountain range and stretching for over 65km (40 miles); the length of the Canal is often referred to as 80km (50 miles) as this is the distance between deep-water points of entry. Only about a quarter of the country is inhabited. The majority of the population live either around the Canal and main cities of Panama City and Colón (the two cities which control the entrance and exit of the Canal) or in the Pacific lowlands and the adjacent mountains.

Both the unicameral 71-member legislature (Asamblea Legislativa) and the executive president are elected for five years. The President appoints a Cabinet of Ministers.

Republic. Gained independence from Colombia in 1903. Head of State and Government: President Martin Torrijos since 2004. Recent history: At the Presidential election held in 1994, the victor was Ernesto Perez Balladares, backed by a three-party centre-left coalition under the banner of Pueblo Unido. Five years later, Panamanians reverted to the conservative bloc, which took control of the National Assembly, where a four-party coalition was in Government. Mireya Elisa Moscoso Rodriguez, the leader of the largest party in the coalition, the Partido Anulfista, also won the Presidential race. Moscoso thus became Panama’s first female President and presided over the defining event in recent Panamanian history – the return of the Panama Canal Zone to Panama under the terms of the agreement negotiated by the Panamanians and the US Carter administration in 1980. (The prospect of Noriega enjoying unrestricted control of the canal had been an important reason behind the US invasion.) Despite obvious US irritation at the unusual phenomenon of ceding territory to a foreign Government, the Americans pulled out on schedule in a low-key ceremony in December 1999. After this, the Moscoso Government was subjected to a string of violent street protests against Government corruption and mismanagement of the country’s social security fund. And in May 2004, Martin Torrijos (son of the former military leader Omar Torrijos who had been instrumental in negotiating the 1977 treaty with the US to handover the Panama Canal) defeated ex-President Guillermo Endara in the Presidential elections. Torrijos took office in September that year and pledged to pursue a free trade agreement with the USA.

The official language is Spanish, but English is widely spoken.

Almost all Christian; 86 per cent Roman Catholic.

Handshaking is the normal form of greeting and dress is generally casual. The culture is a vibrant mixture of American and Spanish lifestyles. The Mestizo majority, which is largely rural, shares many of the characteristics of Mestizo culture found throughout Central America. Only three indigenous tribes have retained their individuality and traditional lifestyles as a result of withdrawing into virtually inaccessible areas.

120 volts AC, 60Hz. Plugs are the flat two-pin American type.