At the beginning of the semester, I chose Panama as my country for Geography of Latin America. As the semester progressed, we began to work more and more on labs tailored to our country and its geography, whether it was cultural or physical. The first lab we were tasked with included mapping historical places and for Panama, I chose to map 6 different ancient cities. We had several other labs to complete, some included the visualization of Latin American, or in this case, Panamanian economies. One of my favorite assignments of the semester was creating a 30-minute podcast with my roommate Mark, who is also a part of the class. Mark chose Brazil, more specifically the Amazonian portion of Brazil. We found information and data that was relevant to both Panama, and Brazil and began comparing the two. We found many similarities in several different aspects, the more we dove in the more we figured out how similar the two countries are. We began with the size differences between Brazil (Mark) and Panama (myself) and just some general information pertaining to said countries. We spoke on the US invasion of Panama, deforestation in Brazil, and the economic and geographical benefits of the Panama Canal. Panama was established in 1903, 81 years after Brazil which was established in 1822. Overall, it was interesting to see how Panama and Brazil relate to each other even though there is not too much in relation.
Construction for the Panama Canal began in 1904 and was completed in 1914. Stretching 51 miles in length, the canal has nearly 14,000 transits annually which has a value equal to 6% of the global trade. One of the main reasons I chose Panama as my country of study is because of the canal. Growing up I remember always hearing information and even just the name the “Panama Canal” and thought it was fascinating, this is mainly due to my lifelong love for boating and being on the water. Due to Panama being economically and politically stable, Panama is one of the safest countries in Latin America. Panama sits between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean which is what makes the Panama Canal so important. Panama is the 3rd largest market in Central America for the United States agricultural product exports. This includes exportation of bananas, cocoa beans, coffee, coconuts, timber, beef, chicken, shrimp, corn, potatoes, rice, soybeans, and sugar cane. Poultry meats such as beef from cows as I used on my 2041 project are huge exports of Panama contributing to their economy.
