Balboa, Panama

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Balboa is a part of Panama City, located at the Pacific entrance to the Panama Canal. The area is named after Vasco Núñez de Balboa, the Spanish conquistador who claimed to have discovered the Pacific Ocean and it includes Balboa Harbour – the city's main port – and is the location of the Canal Administration Building. The population as of the 1990 census was 1,214.

Until 1979, when the Zone ceased to exist, it was the administrative center of the Panama Canal Zone, meaning that the U.S. had full control over it. Considered a city in its own right by the Americans, it is now governed by the mayor of Panama City and forms part of the capital.