Panama City earns its sobriquet "Crossroads of the World". The fact that so many people pass this way, and so many pause awhile, gives this Latin city a uniquely international feeling. The city has a population of about 700,000 - about the same as Portland, Oregon - and a vitality about the same as a parlay of Rio de Janeiro, San Francisco, Rome, and Macao. Any resemblance to Panama City, Florida, means your tour conductor has goofed.

Scholars have put it forth, after fusty etymologic foraging, that Panama is an Indian word meaning "an abundance of fish." Any tourist could have told them so after 30 seconds of foraging through a restaurant menu here.

Panama City offers its visitors nightlife, daylife, dusklife, and dawnlife. [ more ]

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