Demographics of Panama

Structure of the population

2020 Statistics

^[a]

Population distribution

Source:^[2]

More than half the population lives in the Panama City-Colón metropolitan corridor.

Bocas
del Toro

Coclé

Colón

Chiriquí

Darién

Herrera

Los Santos

Panamá
Oeste

Panamá

Veraguas

Guna Yala

Emberá

Emberá

Naso
Tjër Di

Ngäbe-Buglé

Madugandí

Wargandí

UN estimates

Registration of vital events (especially deaths) was in Panama not complete until the end of the 20th century. The Population Departement of the United Nations prepared the following estimates.^[5]

Registered births and deaths

^[6][8]

(p)=preliminary data

Indigenous Panamanians

European Panamanians

European Panamanians or Caucasian ethnic groups in Panama include Spanish, British and Irish, Dutch, French, Germans, Italians, Portuguese, Poles, Russians or Ukrainians (a large number are Jews), Greeks, and Americans.^{[citation needed]}

Asian Panamanians

Panama has a considerable population of Asian origin; in particular those of Chinese and West Asian (Lebanese, Palestinian, and Syrian) origin. The first Chinese immigrated to Panama from southern China in the 19th century to help build the Panama Railroad. There followed several waves of immigrants, especially after the 1970s, when the ensuing decades saw up to 80,000 immigrants from all over China. At least 50,000 Panamanians are ethnically Chinese, though some estimates count as many as 135,000. Most of the Chinese population reside in the province of Chiriquí. Some studies suggest that almost 1 million Panamanians have at least one Chinese ancestor.^[11][12]

African Panamanians

Afro-Panamanians first arrived during the colonial era. They are intermixed in the general population or live in small Afro-Panamanian communities along the Atlantic Coast and in villages within the Darién jungle. Most of the people in Darien are fishermen or small-scale farmers growing crops such as bananas, rice and coffee as well as raising livestock. Other Afro-Panamanians descend from later migrants from the Caribbean who came to work on railroad-construction projects, commercial agricultural enterprises, and (especially) the canal. Important Afro-Caribbean community areas include towns and cities such as Colón, Cristobal and Balboa, in the former Canal Zone, as well as the Río Abajo area of Panama City. Another region with a large Afro-Caribbean population is the province of Bocas del Toro on the Caribbean coast just south of Costa Rica.^[13]

Most of the Panamanian population of West Indian descent owe their presence in the country to the monumental efforts to build the Panama Canal in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Three-quarters of the 50,000 workers who built the canal were Afro-Caribbean migrants from the British West Indies. Thousands of Afro-Caribbean workers were recruited from Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad.^[13]