title: Edward I of England

text: Edward's reign saw an overhaul of the coinage system, which was in a poor state by 1279. Compared to the coinage already circulating at the time of Edward's accession, the new coins issued proved to be of superior quality. In addition to minting pennies, halfpences, and farthings, a new denomination called the groat (which proved to be unsucessful) was introduced. The coinmaking process itself was also improved. William Turnemire introduced a novel method of minting coins that involved cutting blank coins from a silver rod, in contrast with the old practice of stamping them out from sheets; this technique proved to be efficient. The practice of minting coins with the moneyer's name on it became obsolete under Edward's rule because England's mint administration became far more centralized under the Crown's authority. During this time, English coins were frequently counterfeited in foreign places, especially the Low Countries, and despite a ban in 1283, English coinage was secretly exported to the European continent. In August 1280, Edward forbade the usage of the old long cross coinage, which forced the populace to switch to the newly-minted versions. Records do not indicate any adverse consequences that resulted from Edward's monetary reforms; on the contrary, the coinage overhaul successfully provided England with a stable currency.


title: Edward I of England

text: However, Edward I's frequent military campaigns put a great financial strain on the nation. There were several ways through which the King could raise money for war, including customs duties, money lending and lay subsidies. In 1275, Edward I negotiated an agreement with the domestic merchant community that secured a permanent duty on wool, England's primary export. In 1303, a similar agreement was reached with foreign merchants, in return for certain rights and privileges. The revenues from the customs duty were handled by the Riccardi, a group of bankers from Lucca in Italy. This was in return for their service as money lenders to the crown, which helped finance the Welsh Wars. When the war with France broke out, the French king confiscated the Riccardi's assets, and the bank went bankrupt. After this, the Frescobaldi of Florence took over the role as money lenders to the English crown.


title: Edward I of England

text: Another source of crown income was represented by the English Jews. The Jews were the King's personal property, and he was free to tax them at will. By 1280, the Jews had been exploited to a level at which they were no longer of much financial use to the crown, but they could still be used in political bargaining. Their loan with interest businessa practice forbidden to Christianshad made many people indebted to them and caused general popular resentment. In 1275, Edward had issued the Statute of the Jewry, which outlawed loan with interest and encouraged the Jews to take up other professions; in 1279, in the context of a crack-down on coin-clippers, he arrested all the heads of Jewish households in England and had around 300 of them executed. In 1280, he ordered all Jews to attend special sermons, preached by Dominican friars, with the hope of persuading them to convert, but these exhortations were not followed. The final attack on the Jews in England came in the Edict of Expulsion in 1290, whereby Edward formally expelled all Jews from England. This not only generated revenues through royal appropriation of Jewish loans and property, but it also gave Edward the political capital to negotiate a substantial lay subsidy in the 1290 Parliament. The expulsion, which was reversed in the 1650s, followed a precedent set by other European rulers: Philip II of France had expelled all Jews from his own lands in 1182; John I, Duke of Brittany, drove them out of his duchy in 1239; and in the late 1240s Louis IX of France had expelled the Jews from the royal demesne before his first passage to the East.


title: Edward I of England

text: Edward held Parliament on a reasonably regular basis throughout his reign. In 1295, however, a significant change occurred. For this Parliament, in addition to the secular and ecclesiastical lords, two knights from each county and two representatives from each borough were summoned. The representation of commons in Parliament was nothing new; what was new was the authority under which these representatives were summoned. Whereas previously the commons had been expected simply to assent to decisions already made by the magnates, it was now proclaimed that they should meet with the full authority ("plena potestas") of their communities, to give assent to decisions made in Parliament. The King now had full backing for collecting lay subsidies – taxes collected at a certain fraction of the moveable property of all laymen – from the entire population. Whereas Henry III had only collected four of these in his reign, Edward I collected nine. This format eventually became the standard for later Parliaments, and historians have named the assembly the "Model Parliament".


title: Edward I of England

text: The incessant warfare of the 1290s put a great financial demand on Edward's subjects. Whereas the King had levied only three lay subsidies until 1294, four such taxes were granted in the years 1294–97, raising over £200,000. Along with this came the burden of prises, seizure of wool and hides, and the unpopular additional duty on wool, dubbed the "maltolt" ("unjustly taken"). The fiscal demands on the King's subjects caused resentment, and this resentment eventually led to serious political opposition. The initial resistance was caused not by the lay taxes, however, but by clerical subsidies. In 1294, Edward made a demand of a grant of one half of all clerical revenues. There was some resistance, but the King responded by threatening with outlawry, and the grant was eventually made. At the time, the archbishopric of Canterbury was vacant, since Robert Winchelsey was in Italy to receive consecration. Winchelsey returned in January 1295 and had to consent to another grant in November of that year. In 1296, however, his position changed when he received the papal bull "Clericis laicos". This bull prohibited the clergy from paying taxes to lay authorities without explicit consent from the Pope. When the clergy, with reference to the bull, refused to pay, Edward responded with outlawry. Winchelsey was presented with a dilemma between loyalty to the King and upholding the papal bull, and he responded by leaving it to every individual clergyman to pay as he saw fit. By the end of the year, a solution was offered by the new papal bull "Etsi de statu", which allowed clerical taxation in cases of pressing urgency.


title: Edward I of England

text: Opposition from the laity took longer to surface. This resistance focused on two things: the King's right to demand military service and his right to levy taxes. At the Salisbury parliament of February 1297, Earl Marshal Roger Bigod, 5th Earl of Norfolk, objected to a royal summons of military service. Bigod argued that the military obligation only extended to service alongside the King; if the King intended to sail to Flanders, he could not send his subjects to Gascony. In July, Bigod and Humphrey de Bohun, 3rd Earl of Hereford and Constable of England, drew up a series of complaints known as the Remonstrances, in which objections to the extortionate level of taxation were voiced. Undeterred, Edward requested another lay subsidy. This one was particularly provocative, because the King had sought consent from only a small group of magnates, rather than from representatives from the communities in parliament. While Edward was in Winchelsea, preparing for the campaign in Flanders, Bigod and Bohun turned up at the Exchequer to prevent the collection of the tax. As the King left the country with a greatly reduced force, the kingdom seemed to be on the verge of civil war. What resolved the situation was the English defeat by the Scots at the Battle of Stirling Bridge. The renewed threat to the homeland gave king and magnates common cause. Edward signed the "Confirmatio cartarum"a confirmation of "Magna Carta" and its accompanying Charter of the Forestand the nobility agreed to serve with the King on a campaign in Scotland.


title: Edward I of England

text: Edward's problems with the opposition did not end with the Falkirk campaign. Over the following years he would be held to the promises he had made, in particular that of upholding the Charter of the Forest. In the parliament of 1301, the King was forced to order an assessment of the royal forests, but in 1305 he obtained a papal bull that freed him from this concession. Ultimately, it was a failure in personnel that spelt the end of the opposition against Edward. Bohun died late in 1298, after returning from the Falkirk campaign. In 1302 Bigod arrived at an agreement with the King that was beneficial for both: Bigod, who had no children, made Edward his heir, in return for a generous annual grant. Edward finally got his revenge on Winchelsey in 1305, when Clement V was elected pope. Clement was a Gascon sympathetic to the King, and on Edward's instigation had Winchelsey suspended from office.


title: Edward I of England

text: Edward had reason to believe that he had completed the conquest of Scotland when he left the country in 1296, but resistance soon emerged under the leadership of Andrew de Moray in the north and William Wallace in the south. On 11 September 1297, a large English force under the leadership of John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey, and Hugh de Cressingham was routed by a much smaller Scottish army led by Wallace and Moray at Stirling Bridge. The defeat sent shockwaves into England, and preparations for a retaliatory campaign started immediately. Soon after Edward returned from Flanders, he headed north. On 22 July 1298, in the only major battle he had fought since Evesham in 1265, Edward defeated Wallace's forces at the Battle of Falkirk. Edward, however, was not able to take advantage of the momentum, and the next year the Scots managed to recapture Stirling Castle. Even though Edward campaigned in Scotland both in 1300, when he successfully besieged Caerlaverock Castle and in 1301, the Scots refused to engage in open battle again, preferring instead to raid the English countryside in smaller groups.


title: Edward I of England

text: The defeated Scots appealed to Pope Boniface VIII to assert a claim of overlordship to Scotland in place of the English. His papal bull addressed to King Edward in these terms was firmly rejected on Edward's behalf by the Barons' Letter of 1301. The English managed to subdue the country by other means, however. In 1303, a peace agreement was reached between England and France, effectively breaking up the Franco-Scottish alliance. Robert the Bruce, the grandson of the claimant to the crown in 1291, had sided with the English in the winter of 1301–02. By 1304, most of the other nobles of the country had also pledged their allegiance to Edward, and this year the English also managed to re-take Stirling Castle. A great propaganda victory was achieved in 1305 when Wallace was betrayed by Sir John de Menteith and turned over to the English, who had him taken to London where he was publicly executed. With Scotland largely under English control, Edward installed Englishmen and collaborating Scots to govern the country.


title: Edward I of England

text: The situation changed again on 10 February 1306, when Robert the Bruce murdered his rival John Comyn, and a few weeks later, on 25 March, was crowned King of Scotland by Isobel, sister of the Earl of Buchan. Bruce now embarked on a campaign to restore Scottish independence, and this campaign took the English by surprise. Edward was suffering ill health by this time, and instead of leading an expedition himself, he gave different military commands to Aymer de Valence, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, and Henry Percy, 1st Baron Percy, while the main royal army was led by the Prince of Wales. The English initially met with success; on 19 June, Aymer de Valence routed Bruce at the Battle of Methven. Bruce was forced into hiding, while the English forces recaptured their lost territory and castles.


title: Edward I of England

text: Edward acted with unusual brutality against Bruce's family, allies, and supporters. His sister, Mary, was imprisoned in a cage at Roxburgh Castle for four years. Isabella MacDuff, Countess of Buchan, who had crowned Bruce, was held in a cage at Berwick Castle. His younger brother Neil was executed by being hanged, drawn, and quartered; he had been captured after he and his garrison held off Edward's forces who had been seeking his wife Elizabeth, daughter Marjorie, sisters Mary and Christina, and Isabella.


title: Edward I of England

text: It was clear that Edward now regarded the struggle not as a war between two nations, but as the suppression of a rebellion of disloyal subjects. This brutality, though, rather than helping to subdue the Scots, had the opposite effect, and rallied growing support for Bruce.


title: Edward I of England

text: In February 1307, Bruce resumed his efforts and started gathering men, and in May he defeated Valence at the Battle of Loudoun Hill. Edward, who had rallied somewhat, now moved north himself. On the way, however, he developed dysentery, and his condition deteriorated. On 6 July he encamped at Burgh by Sands, just south of the Scottish border. When his servants came the next morning to lift him up so that he could eat, the King died in their arms.


title: Edward I of England

text: Various stories emerged about Edward's deathbed wishes; according to one tradition, he requested that his heart be carried to the Holy Land, along with an army to fight the infidels. A more dubious story tells of how he wished for his bones to be carried along on future expeditions against the Scots. Another account of his deathbed scene is more credible; according to one chronicle, Edward gathered around him Henry de Lacy, 3rd Earl of Lincoln; Guy de Beauchamp, 10th Earl of Warwick; Aymer de Valence; and Robert de Clifford, 1st Baron de Clifford, and charged them with looking after his son Edward. In particular they should make sure that Piers Gaveston, whom he had banished earlier that year, was not allowed to return to the country. This wish, however, the son ignored, and had his favourite recalled from exile almost immediately. The new king, Edward II, remained in the north until August, but then abandoned the campaign and headed south, partially due to financial limitations. He was crowned king on 25 February 1308.


title: Edward I of England

text: Edward I's body was brought south, lying in state at Waltham Abbey, before being buried in Westminster Abbey on 27 October. There are few records of the funeral, which cost £473. Edward's tomb was an unusually plain sarcophagus of Purbeck marble, without the customary royal effigy, possibly the result of the shortage of royal funds after the King's death. The sarcophagus may normally have been covered over with rich cloth, and originally might have been surrounded by carved busts and a devotional religious image, all since lost. The Society of Antiquaries of London opened the tomb in 1774, finding that the body had been well preserved over the preceding 467 years, and took the opportunity to determine the King's original height. Traces of the Latin inscription "Edwardus Primus Scottorum Malleus hic est, 1308. Pactum Serva" ("Here is Edward I, Hammer of the Scots, 1308. Keep the Troth") can still be seen painted on the side of the tomb, referring to his vow to avenge the rebellion of Robert Bruce. This resulted in Edward being given the epithet the "Hammer of the Scots" by historians, but is not contemporary in origin, having been added by the Abbot John Feckenham in the 16th century.


title: Edward I of England

text: The first histories of Edward in the 16th and 17th centuries drew primarily on the works of the chroniclers, and made little use of the official records of the period. They limited themselves to general comments on Edward's significance as a monarch, and echoed the chroniclers' praise for his accomplishments. During the 17th century, the lawyer Edward Coke wrote extensively about Edward's legislation, terming the king the "English Justinian" after the renowned Byzantine lawmaker Justinian I. Later in the century, historians used the available record evidence to address the role of parliament and kingship under Edward, drawing comparisons between his reign and the political strife of their own century. Eighteenth-century historians established a picture of Edward as an able, if ruthless, monarch, conditioned by the circumstances of his own time.


title: Edward I of England

text: The influential Victorian historian William Stubbs instead suggested that Edward had actively shaped national history, forming English laws and institutions, and helping England to develop a parliamentary and constitutional monarchy. His strengths and weaknesses as a ruler were considered to be emblematic of the English people as a whole. Stubbs' student, Thomas Tout, initially adopted the same perspective, but after extensive research into Edward's royal household, and backed by the research of his contemporaries into the early parliaments of the period, he changed his mind. Tout came to view Edward as a self-interested, conservative leader, using the parliamentary system as "the shrewd device of an autocrat, anxious to use the mass of the people as a check upon his hereditary foes among the greater baronage."


title: Edward I of England

text: Historians in the 20th and 21st century have conducted extensive research on Edward and his reign. Most have concluded this was a highly significant period in English medieval history, some going further and describing Edward as one of the great medieval kings, although most also agree that his final years were less successful than his early decades in power. Three major academic narratives of Edward have been produced during this period. F. M. Powicke's volumes, published in 1947 and 1953, forming the standard works on Edward for several decades, were largely positive in praising the achievements of his reign, and in particular his focus on justice and the law. In 1988, Michael Prestwich produced an authoritative biography of the King, focusing on his political career, still portraying him in sympathetic terms, but highlighting some of the consequences of his failed policies. Marc Morris's biography followed in 2008, drawing out more of the detail of Edward's personality, and generally taking a harsher view of his weaknesses and less pleasant characteristics. Considerable academic debate has taken place around the character of Edward's kingship, his political skills, and in particular his management of his earls, and the degree to which this was collaborative or repressive in nature.


title: Edward I of England

text: There is also a great difference between English and Scottish historiography on King Edward. G. W. S. Barrow, in his biography of Robert the Bruce, accused Edward of ruthlessly exploiting the leaderless state of Scotland to obtain a feudal superiority over the kingdom followed by his determination to reduce it to nothing more than an English possession. The same view of Edward as a conquering tyrant is presented in Evan Macleod Barron's massive overview of the Scottish War of Independence.


title: Edward I of England

text: By his first wife Eleanor of Castile, Edward had at least fourteen children, perhaps as many as sixteen. Of these, five daughters survived into adulthood, but only one son outlived his father, becoming King Edward II (1307–1327). Edward's children with Eleanor were:


title: Edward I of England

text: By Margaret of France, Edward had two sons, both of whom lived to adulthood, and a daughter who died as a child. The Hailes Abbey chronicle indicates that John Botetourt may have been Edward's illegitimate son; however, the claim is unsubstantiated. His progeny by Margaret of France were:


title: Panama

text: Panama ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Panama (), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the south. Its capital and largest city is Panama City, whose metropolitan area is home to nearly half the country's /1e6 round 0 million people.


title: Panama

text: Panama was inhabited by indigenous tribes before Spanish colonists arrived in the 16th century. It broke away from Spain in 1821 and joined the Republic of Gran Colombia, a union of Nueva Granada, Ecuador, and Venezuela. After Gran Colombia dissolved in 1831, Panama and Nueva Granada eventually became the Republic of Colombia. With the backing of the United States, Panama seceded from Colombia in 1903, allowing the construction of the Panama Canal to be completed by the United States Army Corps of Engineers between 1904 and 1914. The 1977 Torrijos–Carter Treaties agreed to transfer the canal from the United States to Panama on December 31, 1999. The surrounding territory was first returned in 1979.


title: Panama

text: Revenue from canal tolls continues to represent a significant portion of Panama's GDP, although commerce, banking, and tourism are major and growing sectors. It is regarded as having a high-income economy. In 2019 Panama ranked 57th in the world in terms of the Human Development Index. In 2018, Panama was ranked the seventh-most competitive economy in Latin America, according to the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Index. Covering around 40 percent of its land area, Panama's jungles are home to an abundance of tropical plants and animals – some of them found nowhere else on earth. Panama is a founding member of the United Nations and other international organizations such as OAS, LAIA, G77, WHO, and NAM.


title: Panama

text: The definite origin of the name "Panama" is unknown. There are several theories. One states that the country was named after a commonly found species of tree ("Sterculia apetala", the Panama tree). Another states that the first settlers arrived in Panama in August, when butterflies are abundant, and that the name means "many butterflies" in one or several of the indigenous Amerindian languages that were spoken in the territory prior to Spanish colonization. Another theory states that the word is a castilianization of the Kuna language word ""bannaba"" which means "distant" or "far away".


title: Panama

text: A commonly relayed legend in Panama is that there was a fishing village that bore the name "Panamá", which purportedly meant "an abundance of fish", when the Spanish colonizers first landed in the area. The exact location of the village is unknown. The legend is usually corroborated by Captain Antonio Tello de Guzmán's diary entries, who reports landing at an unnamed village while exploring the Pacific coast of Panama in 1515; he only describes the village as a "same small indigenous fishing town". In 1517, Don Gaspar de Espinosa, a Spanish lieutenant, decided to settle a post in the same location Guzmán described. In 1519, Pedro Arias Dávila decided to establish the Spanish Empire's Pacific port at the site. The new settlement replaced Santa María la Antigua del Darién, which had lost its function within the Crown's global plan after the Spanish exploitation of the riches in the Pacific began.


title: Panama

text: The official definition and origin of the name as promoted by Panama's Ministry of Education is the "abundance of fish, trees and butterflies". This is the usual description given in social studies textbooks.


title: Panama

text: At the time of the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century, the known inhabitants of Panama included the Cuevas and the Coclé tribes. These people have nearly disappeared, as they had no immunity from European infectious diseases.


title: Panama

text: The Isthmus of Panama was formed about three million years ago when the land bridge between North and South America finally became complete, and plants and animals gradually crossed it in both directions. The existence of the isthmus affected the dispersal of people, agriculture and technology throughout the American continent from the appearance of the first hunters and collectors to the era of villages and cities.


title: Panama

text: The earliest discovered artifacts of indigenous peoples in Panama include Paleo-Indian projectile points. Later central Panama was home to some of the first pottery-making in the Americas, for example the cultures at Monagrillo, which date back to 2500–1700 BC. These evolved into significant populations best known through their spectacular burials (dating to c. 500–900 AD) at the Monagrillo archaeological site, and their beautiful Gran Coclé style polychrome pottery. The monumental monolithic sculptures at the Barriles (Chiriqui) site are also important traces of these ancient isthmian cultures.


title: Panama

text: Before Europeans arrived Panama was widely settled by Chibchan, Chocoan, and Cueva peoples. The largest group were the Cueva (whose specific language affiliation is poorly documented). The size of the indigenous population of the isthmus at the time of European colonization is uncertain. Estimates range as high as two million people, but more recent studies place that number closer to 200,000. Archaeological finds and testimonials by early European explorers describe diverse native isthmian groups exhibiting cultural variety and suggesting people developed by regular regional routes of commerce.


title: Panama

text: When Panama was colonized, the indigenous peoples fled into the forest and nearby islands. Scholars believe that infectious disease was the primary cause of the population decline of American natives. The indigenous peoples had no acquired immunity to diseases such as smallpox which had been chronic in Eurasian populations for centuries.


title: Panama

text: Rodrigo de Bastidas sailed westward from Venezuela in 1501 in search of gold, and became the first European to explore the isthmus of Panama. A year later, Christopher Columbus visited the isthmus, and established a short-lived settlement in the Darien. Vasco Núñez de Balboa's tortuous trek from the Atlantic to the Pacific in 1513 demonstrated that the isthmus was indeed the path between the seas, and Panama quickly became the crossroads and marketplace of Spain's empire in the New World. King Ferdinand II assigned Pedro Arias Dávila as Royal Governor. He arrived in June 1514 with a 19 vessels and 1,500 men. In 1519, Dávila founded Panama City. Gold and silver were brought by ship from South America, hauled across the isthmus, and loaded aboard ships for Spain. The route became known as the Camino Real, or Royal Road, although it was more commonly known as Camino de Cruces (Road of Crosses) because of the number of gravesites along the way.


title: Panama

text: Panama was under Spanish rule for almost 300 years (1538–1821), and became part of the Viceroyalty of Peru, along with all other Spanish possessions in South America. From the outset, Panamanian identity was based on a sense of "geographic destiny", and Panamanian fortunes fluctuated with the geopolitical importance of the isthmus. The colonial experience spawned Panamanian nationalism and a racially complex and highly stratified society, the source of internal conflicts that ran counter to the unifying force of nationalism.


title: Panama

text: In 1538 the Real Audiencia of Panama was established, initially with jurisdiction from Nicaragua to Cape Horn, until the conquest of Peru. A Real Audiencia was a judicial district that functioned as an appeals court. Each audiencia had an "oidor" (Spanish: hearer, a judge).


title: Panama

text: Spanish authorities had little control over much of the territory of Panama. Large sections managed to resist conquest and missionization until very late in the colonial era. Because of this, indigenous people of the area were often referred to as "indios de guerra" (war Indians) who resisted Spanish attempts to conquer them or missionize them. However, Panama was enormously important to Spain strategically because it was the easiest way to transship silver mined in Peru to Europe. Silver cargoes were landed at Panama and then taken overland to Portobello or Nombre de Dios on the Caribbean side of the isthmus for further shipment. Asides from the European route, there was also an Asian-American route, which led to traders and adventurers carrying silver from Peru going through Panama to reach Acapulco, Mexico before sailing to Manila, Philippines using the famed Manila Galleons. In 1579, the royal monopoly Acapulco, Mexico; had with trading with; Manila, Philippines; was relaxed and Panama was assigned as another port that was able to trade directly with Asia.


title: Panama

text: Because of incomplete Spanish control, the Panama route was vulnerable to attack from pirates (mostly Dutch and English), and from "new world" Africans called cimarrons who had freed themselves from enslavement and lived in communes or "palenques" around the Camino Real in Panama's Interior, and on some of the islands off Panama's Pacific coast. One such famous community amounted to a small kingdom under Bayano, which emerged in the 1552 to 1558. Sir Francis Drake's famous raids on Panama in 1572–73 and John Oxenham's crossing to the Pacific Ocean were aided by Panama cimarrons, and Spanish authorities were only able to bring them under control by making an alliance with them that guaranteed their freedom in exchange for military support in 1582.


title: Panama

text: The prosperity enjoyed during the first two centuries (1540–1740) while contributing to colonial growth; the placing of extensive regional judicial authority (Real Audiencia) as part of its jurisdiction; and the pivotal role it played at the height of the Spanish Empire – the first modern global empire – helped define a distinctive sense of autonomy and of regional or national identity within Panama well before the rest of the colonies.


title: Panama

text: The end of the encomienda system in Azuero, however, sparked the conquest of Veraguas in that same year. Under the leadership of Francisco Vázquez, the region of Veraguas passed into Castilian rule in 1558. In the newly conquered region, the old system of encomienda was imposed. On the other hand, the Panamanian movement for independence can be indirectly attributed to the abolition of the encomienda system in the Azuero Peninsula, set forth by the Spanish Crown, in 1558 because of repeated protests by locals against the mistreatment of the native population. In its stead, a system of medium and smaller-sized landownership was promoted, thus taking away the power from the large landowners and into the hands of medium and small-sized proprietors.


title: Panama

text: Panama was the site of the ill-fated Darien scheme, which set up a Scottish colony in the region in 1698. This failed for a number of reasons, and the ensuing debt contributed to the union of England and Scotland in 1707.


title: Panama

text: In 1671, the privateer Henry Morgan, licensed by the English government, sacked and burned the city of Panama – the second most important city in the Spanish New World at the time. In 1717 the viceroyalty of New Granada (northern South America) was created in response to other Europeans trying to take Spanish territory in the Caribbean region. The Isthmus of Panama was placed under its jurisdiction. However, the remoteness of New Granada's capital, Santa Fe de Bogotá (the modern capital of Colombia) proved a greater obstacle than the Spanish crown anticipated as the authority of New Granada was contested by the seniority, closer proximity, and previous ties to the viceroyalty of Lima and even by Panama's own initiative. This uneasy relationship between Panama and Bogotá would persist for centuries.


title: Panama

text: In 1744, Bishop Francisco Javier de Luna Victoria DeCastro established the College of San Ignacio de Loyola and on June 3, 1749, founded La Real y Pontificia Universidad de San Javier. By this time, however, Panama's importance and influence had become insignificant as Spain's power dwindled in Europe and advances in navigation technique increasingly permitted ships to round Cape Horn in order to reach the Pacific. While the Panama route was short it was also labor-intensive and expensive because of the loading and unloading and laden-down trek required to get from the one coast to the other.


title: Panama

text: As the Spanish American wars of independence were heating up all across Latin America, Panama City was preparing for independence; however, their plans were accelerated by the unilateral Grito de La Villa de Los Santos (Cry From the Town of Saints), issued on November 10, 1821, by the residents of Azuero without backing from Panama City to declare their separation from the Spanish Empire. In both Veraguas and the capital this act was met with disdain, although on differing levels. To Veraguas, it was the ultimate act of treason, while to the capital, it was seen as inefficient and irregular, and furthermore forced them to accelerate their plans.


title: Panama

text: Nevertheless, the Grito was a sign, on the part of the residents of Azuero, of their antagonism toward the independence movement in the capital. Those in the capital region in turn regarded the Azueran movement with contempt, since the separatists in Panama City believed that their counterparts in Azuero were fighting not only for independence from Spain, but also for their right to self-rule apart from Panama City once the Spaniards were gone.


title: Panama

text: It was seen as a risky move on the part of Azuero, which lived in fear of Colonel José Pedro Antonio de Fábrega y de las Cuevas (1774–1841). The colonel was a staunch loyalist and had all of the isthmus' military supplies in his hands. They feared quick retaliation and swift retribution against the separatists.


title: Panama

text: What they had counted on, however, was the influence of the separatists in the capital. Ever since October 1821, when the former Governor General, Juan de la Cruz Murgeón, left the isthmus on a campaign in Quito and left a colonel in charge, the separatists had been slowly converting Fábrega to the separatist side. So, by November 10, Fábrega was now a supporter of the independence movement. Soon after the separatist declaration of Los Santos, Fábrega convened every organization in the capital with separatist interests and formally declared the city's support for independence. No military repercussions occurred because of skillful bribing of royalist troops.


title: Panama

text: In the 80 years following independence from Spain, Panama was a subdivision of Gran Colombia, after voluntarily joining the country at the end of 1821.


title: Panama

text: The people of the isthmus made over 80 attempts to secede from Colombia. They came close to success in 1831, then again during the Thousand Days' War of 1899–1902, understood among indigenous Panamanians as a struggle for land rights under the leadership of Victoriano Lorenzo.


title: Panama

text: The US intent to influence the area, especially the Panama Canal's construction and control, led to the separation of Panama from Colombia in 1903 and its establishment as a nation. When the Senate of Colombia rejected the Hay–Herrán Treaty on January 22, 1903, the United States decided to support and encourage the Panamanian separatist movement.


title: Panama

text: In November 1903 Panama, tacitly supported by the United States, proclaimed its independence and concluded the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty with the United States without the presence of a single Panamanian. Philippe Bunau-Varilla, a French engineer and lobbyist represented Panama even though Panama's president and a delegation had arrived in New York to negotiate the treaty. The treaty was quickly drafted and signed the night before the Panamanian delegation arrived in Washington. Mr. Bunau-Varilla was in the employ of the French Canal company that had failed and was now bankrupt.


title: Panama

text: The treaty granted rights to the United States "as if it were sovereign" in a zone roughly wide and long. In that zone, the US would build a canal, then administer, fortify, and defend it "in perpetuity".


title: Panama

text: Because of the strategic importance of the canal during World War II, the US extensively fortified access to it.


title: Panama

text: From 1903 to 1968, Panama was a constitutional democracy dominated by a commercially oriented oligarchy. During the 1950s, the Panamanian military began to challenge the oligarchy's political hegemony. The early 1960s saw also the beginning of sustained pressure in Panama for the renegotiation of the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty, including riots that broke out in early 1964, resulting in widespread looting and dozens of deaths, and the evacuation of the American embassy.


title: Panama

text: Arias Madrid was declared the winner of elections that were marked by violence and accusations of fraud against Alianza del Pueblo. On October 1, 1968, Arias Madrid took office as president of Panama, promising to lead a government of "national union" that would end the reigning corruption and pave the way for a new Panama. A week and a half later, on October 11, 1968, the National Guard (Guardia Nacional) ousted Arias and initiated the downward spiral that would culminate with the United States' invasion in 1989. Arias, who had promised to respect the hierarchy of the National Guard, broke the pact and started a large restructuring of the Guard. To preserve the Guard's and his vested interests, Lieutenant Colonel Omar Torrijos Herrera and Major Boris Martínez commanded another military coup against the government.


title: Panama

text: The military justified itself by declaring that Arias Madrid was trying to install a dictatorship, and promised a return to constitutional rule. In the meantime, the Guard began a series of populist measures that would gain support for the coup. Among them were:


title: Panama

text: Parallel to this, the military began a policy of repression against the opposition, who were labeled communists. The military appointed a Provisional Government Junta that was to arrange new elections. However, the National Guard would prove to be very reluctant to abandon power and soon began calling itself El Gobierno Revolucionario (The Revolutionary Government).


title: Panama

text: Under Omar Torrijos's control, the military transformed the political and economic structure of the country, initiating massive coverage of social security services and expanding public education.


title: Panama

text: The constitution was changed in 1972. To reform the constitution, the military created a new organization, the Assembly of Corregimiento Representatives, which replaced the National Assembly. The new assembly, also known as the Poder Popular (Power of the People), was composed of 505 members selected by the military with no participation from political parties, which the military had eliminated. The new constitution proclaimed Omar Torrijos as the Maximum Leader of the Panamanian Revolution, and conceded him unlimited power for six years, although, to keep a façade of constitutionality, Demetrio B. Lakas was appointed president for the same period.


title: Panama

text: In 1981, Torrijos died in a plane crash. Torrijos' death altered the tone of Panama's political evolution. Despite the 1983 constitutional amendments which proscribed a political role for the military, the Panama Defense Force (PDF), as they were then known, continued to dominate Panamanian political life. By this time, General Manuel Antonio Noriega was firmly in control of both the PDF and the civilian government.


title: Panama

text: Barletta was declared the winner of elections that had been considered to be fraudulent. Barletta inherited a country in economic ruin and hugely indebted to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Amid the economic crisis and Barletta's efforts to calm the country's creditors, street protests arose, and so did military repression.


title: Panama

text: Meanwhile, Noriega's regime had fostered a well-hidden criminal economy that operated as a parallel source of income for the military and their allies, providing revenues from drugs and money laundering. Toward the end of the military dictatorship, a new wave of Chinese migrants arrived on the isthmus in the hope of migrating to the United States. The smuggling of Chinese became an enormous business, with revenues of up to 200 million dollars for Noriega's regime (see Mon 167).


title: Panama

text: The military dictatorship assassinated or tortured more than one hundred Panamanians and forced at least a hundred more dissidents into exile. (see Zárate 15). Noriega's regime was supported by the United States and it began playing a double role in Central America. While the Contadora group, an initiative launched by the foreign ministers of various Latin American nations including Panama's, conducted diplomatic efforts to achieve peace in the region, Noriega supplied Nicaraguan Contras and other guerrillas in the region with weapons and ammunition on behalf of the CIA.


title: Panama

text: On June 6, 1987, the recently retired Colonel Roberto Díaz Herrera, resentful that Noriega had broken the agreed-upon "Torrijos Plan" of succession that would have made him the chief of the military after Noriega, decided to denounce the regime. He revealed details of electoral fraud, accused Noriega of planning Torrijos's death and declared that Torrijos had received 12 million dollars from the Shah of Iran for giving the exiled Iranian leader asylum. He also accused Noriega of the assassination by decapitation of then-opposition leader, Dr. Hugo Spadafora.


title: Panama

text: On the night of June 9, 1987, the Cruzada Civilista ("Civic Crusade") was created and began organizing actions of civil disobedience. The Crusade called for a general strike. In response, the military suspended constitutional rights and declared a state of emergency in the country. On July 10, the Civic Crusade called for a massive demonstration that was violently repressed by the "Dobermans", the military's special riot control unit. That day, later known as El Viernes Negro ("Black Friday"), left many people injured and killed.


title: Panama

text: United States President Ronald Reagan began a series of sanctions against the military regime. The United States froze economic and military assistance to Panama in the middle of 1987 in response to the domestic political crisis in Panama and an attack on the US embassy. The sanctions failed to oust Noriega, but severely hurt Panama's economy. Panama's gross domestic product (GDP) declined almost 25 percent between 1987 and 1989.


title: Panama

text: On February 5, 1988, General Manuel Antonio Noriega was accused of drug trafficking by federal juries in Tampa and Miami. Human Rights Watch wrote in its 1989 report: "Washington turned a blind eye to abuses in Panama for many years until concern over drug trafficking prompted indictments of the general [Noriega] by two grand juries in Florida in February 1988".


title: Panama

text: In April 1988, US President Ronald Reagan invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, freezing Panamanian government assets in all US organizations. In May 1989 Panamanians voted overwhelmingly for the anti-Noriega candidates. The Noriega regime promptly annulled the election and embarked on a new round of repression.


title: Panama

text: The United States invaded Panama on December 20, 1989, codenamed Operation Just Cause. The U.S. stated the operation was "necessary to safeguard the lives of U.S. citizens in Panama, defend democracy and human rights, combat drug trafficking, and secure the neutrality of the Panama Canal as required by the Torrijos–Carter Treaties". The US reported 23 servicemen killed and 324 wounded, with the number of Panamanian soldiers killed estimated at around 450. The estimates for civilians killed in the conflict ranges from 200 to 4,000. The United Nations put the Panamanian civilian death toll at 500, Americas Watch estimated 300, the United States gave a figure of 202 civilians killed and former US attorney general Ramsey Clark estimated 4,000 deaths. It represented the largest United States military operation since the Vietnam War. The number of US civilians (and their dependents), who had worked for the Panama Canal Commission and the US military, and were killed by the Panamanian Defense Forces, has never been fully disclosed.


title: Panama

text: On December 29, the United Nations General Assembly approved a resolution calling the intervention in Panama a "flagrant violation of international law and of the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the States". A similar resolution was vetoed in the Security Council by the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. Noriega was captured and flown to Miami to be tried. The conflict ended on January 31, 1990.


title: Panama

text: The urban population, many living below the poverty level, was greatly affected by the 1989 intervention. As pointed out in 1995 by a UN Technical Assistance Mission to Panama, the fighting displaced 20,000 people. The most heavily affected district was the El Chorrillo area of Panama City, where several blocks of apartments were completely destroyed. The economic damage caused by the fighting has been estimated at between 1.5 and 2 billion dollars. Most Panamanians supported the intervention.


title: Panama

text: Panama's Electoral Tribunal moved quickly to restore civilian constitutional government, reinstated the results of the May 1989 election on December 27, 1989, and confirmed the victory of President Guillermo Endara and Vice Presidents Guillermo Ford and Ricardo Arias Calderón.


title: Panama

text: During its five-year term, the often-fractious government struggled to meet the public's high expectations. Its new police force was a major improvement over its predecessor but was not fully able to deter crime. Ernesto Pérez Balladares was sworn in as president on September 1, 1994, after an internationally monitored election campaign.


title: Panama

text: Balladares ran as the candidate for a three-party coalition dominated by the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), the erstwhile political arm of military dictatorships. Perez Balladares worked skillfully during the campaign to rehabilitate the PRD's image, emphasizing the party's populist Torrijos roots rather than its association with Noriega. He won the election with only 33 percent of the vote when the major non-PRD forces splintered into competing factions. His administration carried out economic reforms and often worked closely with the US on implementation of the Canal treaties.


title: Panama

text: On September 1, 1999, Mireya Moscoso, the widow of former President Arnulfo Arias Madrid, took office after defeating PRD candidate Martín Torrijos, son of Omar Torrijos, in a free and fair election. During her administration, Moscoso attempted to strengthen social programs, especially for child and youth development, protection, and general welfare. Moscoso's administration successfully handled the Panama Canal transfer and was effective in the administration of the Canal.


title: Panama

text: The PRD's Martin Torrijos won the presidency and a legislative majority in the National Assembly in 2004. Torrijos ran his campaign on a platform of, among other pledges, a "zero tolerance" for corruption, a problem endemic to the Moscoso and Perez Balladares administrations. After taking office, Torrijos passed a number of laws which made the government more transparent. He formed a National Anti-Corruption Council whose members represented the highest levels of government and civil society, labor organizations, and religious leadership. In addition, many of his closest Cabinet ministers were non-political technocrats known for their support for the Torrijos government's anti-corruption aims. Despite the Torrijos administration's public stance on corruption, many high-profile cases, particularly involving political or business elites, were never acted upon.


title: Panama

text: Conservative supermarket magnate Ricardo Martinelli was elected to succeed Martin Torrijos with a landslide victory in the May 2009 Panamanian general election. Martinelli's business credentials drew voters worried by slowing growth during the Great Recession. Standing for the four-party opposition Alliance for Change, Martinelli gained 60 percent of the vote, against 37 percent for the candidate of the governing left-wing Democratic Revolutionary Party.


title: Panama

text: On May 4, 2014, Vice President Juan Carlos Varela, candidate of the Partido Panamenista (Panamanian Party) won the 2014 presidential election with over 39 percent of the votes, against the party of his former political partner Ricardo Martinelli, Cambio Democrático, and their candidate José Domingo Arias. He was sworn in on July 1, 2014. On July 1, 2019 Laurentino Cortizo took possession of the presidency. Cortizo was the candidate of Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) in the May 2019 presidential election.


title: Panama

text: Panama is located in Central America, bordering both the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, between Colombia and Costa Rica. It mostly lies between latitudes 7° and 10°N, and longitudes 77° and 83°W (a small area lies west of 83°).


title: Panama

text: Its location on the Isthmus of Panama is strategic. By 2000, Panama controlled the Panama Canal which connects the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea to the north of the Pacific Ocean. Panama's total area is .


title: Panama

text: The dominant feature of Panama's geography is the central spine of mountains and hills that forms the continental divide. The divide does not form part of the great mountain chains of North America, and only near the Colombian border are there highlands related to the Andean system of South America. The spine that forms the divide is the highly eroded arch of an uplift from the sea bottom, in which peaks were formed by volcanic intrusions.


title: Panama

text: The mountain range of the divide is called the Cordillera de Talamanca near the Costa Rican border. Farther east it becomes the Serranía de Tabasará, and the portion of it closer to the lower saddle of the isthmus, where the Panama Canal is located, is often called the Sierra de Veraguas. As a whole, the range between Costa Rica and the canal is generally referred to by geographers as the Cordillera Central.


title: Panama

text: The highest point in the country is the Volcán Barú, which rises to . A nearly impenetrable jungle forms the Darién Gap between Panama and Colombia where Colombian guerrillas and drug dealers operate and sometimes take hostages. This and unrest, and forest protection movements, create a break in the Pan-American Highway, which otherwise forms a complete road from Alaska to Patagonia.


title: Panama

text: Panama's wildlife is the most diverse in Central America. It is home to many South American species as well as to North American wildlife.


title: Panama

text: Nearly 500 rivers lace Panama's rugged landscape. Mostly unnavigable, many originate as swift highland streams, meander in valleys, and form coastal deltas. However, the Río Chagres ("Chagres River"), located in central Panama, is one of the few wide rivers and a source of hydroelectric power. The central part of the river is dammed by the Gatun Dam and forms Gatun Lake, an artificial lake that constitutes part of the Panama Canal. The lake was created by the construction of the Gatun Dam across the Río Chagres between 1907 and 1913. Once created, Gatun Lake was the largest man-made lake in the world, and the dam was the largest earth dam. The river drains northwest into the Caribbean. The Kampia and Madden Lakes (also filled from the Río Chagres) provide hydroelectricity for the area of the former Canal Zone.


title: Panama

text: The Río Chepo, another source of hydroelectric power, is one of the more than 300 rivers emptying into the Pacific. These Pacific-oriented rivers are longer and slower-running than those on the Caribbean side. Their basins are also more extensive. One of the longest is the Río Tuira, which flows into the Golfo de San Miguel and is the nation's only river that is navigable by larger vessels.


title: Panama

text: The Caribbean coastline is marked by several natural harbors. However, Cristóbal, at the Caribbean terminus of the canal, had the only important port facilities in the late 1980s. The numerous islands of the Archipiélago de Bocas del Toro, near the Beaches of Costa Rica, provide an extensive natural roadstead and shield the banana port of Almirante. The more than 350 San Blas Islands near Colombia, are strung out over more than along the sheltered Caribbean coastline.


title: Panama

text: The terminal ports located at each end of the Panama Canal, namely the Port of Cristóbal, Colón and the Port of Balboa, are ranked second and third respectively in Latin America in terms of numbers of containers units (TEU) handled. The Port of Balboa covers 182 hectares and contains four berths for containers and two multi-purpose berths. In total, the berths are over long with alongside depth of . The Port of Balboa has 18 super post-Panamax and Panamax quay cranes and 44 gantry cranes. The Port of Balboa also contains of warehouse space.


title: Panama

text: The Ports of Cristobal (encompassing the container terminals of Panama Ports Cristobal, Manzanillo International Terminal and Colon Container Terminal) handled 2,210,720 TEU in 2009, second only to the Port of Santos, Brazil, in Latin America.


title: Panama

text: Excellent deep water ports capable of accommodating large VLCC (Very Large Crude Oil Carriers) are located at Charco Azul, Chiriquí (Pacific) and Chiriquí Grande, Bocas del Toro (Atlantic) near Panama's western border with Costa Rica. The Trans-Panama pipeline, running across the isthmus, has operated between Charco Azul and Chiriquí Grande since 1979.


title: Panama

text: Panama has a tropical climate. Temperatures are uniformly high—as is the relative humidity—and there is little seasonal variation. Diurnal ranges are low; on a typical dry-season day in the capital city, the early morning minimum may be and the afternoon maximum . The temperature seldom exceeds for more than a short time. Temperatures on the Pacific side of the isthmus are somewhat lower than on the Caribbean, and breezes tend to rise after dusk in most parts of the country. Temperatures are markedly cooler in the higher parts of the mountain ranges, and frosts occur in the Cordillera de Talamanca in western Panama.


title: Panama

text: Climatic regions are determined less on the basis of temperature than on rainfall, which varies regionally from less than to more than per year. Almost all of the rain falls during the rainy season, which is usually from April to December, but varies in length from seven to nine months. In general, rainfall is much heavier on the Caribbean than on the Pacific side of the continental divide. The annual average in Panama City is little more than half of that in Colón. Although rainy-season thunderstorms are common, the country is outside the hurricane belt.


title: Panama

text: Panama is one of three countries in the world to be carbon negative, meaning that it absorbs more carbon dioxide that it releases into the atmosphere. The others are Bhutan and Suriname.


title: Panama

text: Panama's tropical environment supports an abundance of plants. Forests dominate, interrupted in places by grasslands, scrub, and crops. Although nearly 40% of Panama is still wooded, deforestation is a continuing threat to the rain-drenched woodlands. Tree cover has been reduced by more than 50 percent since the 1940s. Subsistence farming, widely practised from the northeastern jungles to the southwestern grasslands, consists largely of corn, bean, and tuber plots. Mangrove swamps occur along parts of both coasts, with banana plantations occupying deltas near Costa Rica. In many places, a multi-canopied rain forest abuts the swamp on one side of the country and extends to the lower reaches of slopes on the other. Panama had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 6.37/10, ranking it 78th globally out of 172 countries.


title: Panama

text: In May 2022, in order to increase supply of lower-carbon aviation fuel, the government of Panama and energy companies announced its plan to develop a major and advanced biorefinery of aviation fuel in the country.


title: Panama

text: Panama's politics take place in a framework of a presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the President of Panama is both head of state and head of government, and of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the National Assembly. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.


title: Panama

text: National elections are universal for all citizens 18 years and older. National elections for the executive and legislative branches take place every five years. Members of the judicial branch (justices) are appointed by the head of state. Panama's National Assembly is elected by proportional representation in fixed electoral districts, so many smaller parties are represented. Presidential elections require a plurality; out of the five last presidents only ex-president Ricardo Martinelli has managed to be elected with over 50 percent of the popular vote.


title: Panama

text: Since the end of Manuel Noriega's military dictatorship in 1989, Panama has successfully completed five peaceful transfers of power to opposing political factions. The political landscape is dominated by two major parties and many smaller parties, many of which are driven by individual leaders more than ideologies. Former President Martín Torrijos is the son of general Omar Torrijos. He succeeded Mireya Moscoso, the widow of Arnulfo Arias. Panama's most recent national elections occurred in 2019. The 2019 Panamanian general election were scheduled for May 5, 2019, with current President Juan Carlos Varela being ineligible due to constitutional limits for a second term.


title: Panama

text: The United States cooperates with the Panamanian government in promoting economic, political, security, and social development through US and international agencies. Cultural ties between the two countries are strong, and many Panamanians go to the United States for higher education and advanced training.


title: Panama

text: Shortly after its independence from Colombia in 1903, Panama abolished its army. It maintained police operations throughout the nation. During the 1940s, the Chief of Police of Panama City, Jose Remon, exercised pronounced political power in Panama. He removed and appointed several presidents. In 1952 he ran for president. The campaign was marred by police brutality and persecution of the opposition. As a result, questioned by independent observers, Remon was declared the president. Less than three years later Remon was assassinated. The only president ever assassinated. Today the Panamanian Public Forces are the national security forces of Panama. Panama is the second country in Latin America (the other being Costa Rica) to permanently abolish its standing army. Panama maintains armed police and security forces, and small air and maritime forces. They are tasked with law enforcement and can perform limited military actions.


title: Panama

text: Panama is divided into ten provinces with their respective local authorities (governors). Each is divided into districts and "corregimientos" (townships). Also, there are five "Comarcas" (literally: "Shires") populated by a variety of indigenous groups.


title: Panama

text: According to the CIA World Factbook, Panama had an unemployment rate of 2.7 percent. A food surplus was registered in August 2008. On the Human Development Index, Panama ranked 60th in 2015. In more recent years, Panama's economy has experienced a boom, with growth in real gross domestic product (GDP) averaging over 10.4 percent in 2006–2008. Panama's economy was among the fastest growing and best managed in Latin America. The Latin Business Chronicle predicted that Panama would be the fastest growing economy in Latin America during the five-year period from 2010 to 2014, matching Brazil's 10 percent rate.


title: Panama

text: The expansion project on the Panama Canal is expected to boost and extend economic expansion for some time. Panama also signed the Panama–United States Trade Promotion Agreement which eliminates tariffs to US services.


title: Panama

text: Even though Panama is regarded as a high-income country, it still remains a country of stark contrasts perpetuated by dramatic educational disparities. Between 2015 and 2017, poverty at less than US$5.5 a day fell from 15.4 to an estimated 14.1 percent.


title: Panama

text: Panama's economy, because of its key geographic location, is mainly based on a well-developed service sector, especially commerce, tourism, and trading. The handover of the Canal and military installations by the United States has given rise to large construction projects.


title: Panama

text: A project to build a third set of locks for the Panama Canal was overwhelmingly approved in a referendum (with low voter turnout, however) on October 22, 2006. The official estimated cost of the project is US$5.25 billion, but the canal is of major economic importance because it provides millions of dollars of toll revenue to the national economy and provides massive employment. Transfer of control of the Canal to the Panamanian government completed in 1999, after 85 years of US control.


title: Panama

text: Copper and gold deposits are being developed by foreign investors, to the dismay of some environmental groups, as all of the projects are located within protected areas.


title: Panama

text: Since the early 20th century, Panama has with the revenues from the canal built the largest Regional Financial Center (IFC) in Central America, with consolidated assets being more than three times that of Panama's GDP. The banking sector employs more than 24,000 people directly. Financial intermediation contributed 9.3 percent of GDP. Stability has been a key strength of Panama's financial sector, which has benefited from the country's favorable economic and business climate. Banking institutions report sound growth and solid financial earnings. The banking supervisory regime is largely compliant with the Basel Core Principles for Effective Banking Supervision. As a regional financial center, Panama exports some banking services, mainly to Latin America, and plays an important role in the country's economy. However, Panama still cannot compare to the position held by Hong Kong or Singapore as financial centers in Asia.


title: Panama

text: Panama still has a reputation worldwide for being a tax haven but has agreed to enhanced transparency, especially since the release in 2016 of the Panama Papers. Significant progress has been made to improve full compliance with anti-money laundering recommendations. Panama was removed from the FATF gray list in February 2016. The European Union also removed Panama from its tax haven blacklist in 2018. However efforts remain to be made, and the IMF repeatedly mentions the need to strengthen financial transparency and fiscal structure.


title: Panama

text: Panama is home to Tocumen International Airport, Central America's largest airport. Additionally there are more than 20 smaller airfields in the country. (See list of airports in Panama).


title: Panama

text: Panama's roads, traffic and transportation systems are generally safe, though night driving is difficult and in many cases, restricted by local authorities. This usually occurs in informal settlements. Traffic in Panama moves on the right, and Panamanian law requires that drivers and passengers wear seat belts, and airbags are not mandatory. Highways are generally well-developed for a Latin American country.


title: Panama

text: Currently, Panama City has buses known as Metrobuses, along with two Metro lines. Formerly, the system was dominated by colorfully painted "diablos rojos"; a few remain, and are mostly used on rural areas along with "chivas". A "" is usually customized or painted with bright colors, usually depicting famous actors, politicians or singers. Panama City's streets experience frequent traffic jams due to poor planning for now-extensive private vehicle ownership.


title: Panama

text: Tourism in Panama has maintained its growth over the past five years due to government tax and price discounts to foreign guests and retirees. These economic incentives have caused Panama to be regarded as a relatively good place to retire. Real estate developers in Panama have increased the number of tourism destinations in the past five years because of interest in these visitor incentives.


title: Panama

text: The number of tourists from Europe grew by 23.1 percent during the first nine months of 2008. According to the Tourism Authority of Panama (ATP), from January to September, 71,154 tourists from Europe entered Panama, 13,373 more than in same period the previous year. Most of the European tourists were Spaniards (14,820), followed by Italians (13,216), French (10,174) and British (8,833). There were 6997 from Germany, the most populous country in the European Union. Europe has become one of the key markets to promote Panama as a tourist destination.


title: Panama

text: In 2012, 4.345.5 million entered into the Panamanian economy as a result of tourism. This accounted for 9.5 percent of the gross domestic product of the country, surpassing other productive sectors. The number of tourists who arrived that year was 2.2 million.


title: Panama

text: Panama enacted Law No. 80 in 2012 to promote foreign investment in tourism. Law 80 replaced an older Law 8 of 1994. Law 80 provides 100 percent exemption from income tax and real estate taxes for 15 years, duty-free imports for construction materials and equipment for five years, and a capital gains tax exemption for five years.


title: Panama

text: The Panamanian currency is officially the balboa, fixed at a rate of 1:1 with the United States dollar since Panamanian independence in 1903. In practice, Panama is dollarized: U.S. dollars are legal tender and used for all paper currency, and whilst Panama has its own coinage, U.S. coins are widely used. Because of the tie to US dollars, Panama has traditionally had low inflation. According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Panama's inflation in 2006 was 2.0 percent as measured by a weighted Consumer Price Index.


title: Panama

text: The balboa replaced the Colombian peso in 1904 after Panama's independence. Balboa banknotes were printed in 1941 by President Arnulfo Arias. They were recalled several days later, giving them the name "The Seven Day Dollars". The notes were burned by the new government, but occasionally balboa notes can be found in collections. These were the only banknotes ever issued by Panama and US notes have circulated both before and since.


title: Panama

text: On April 28, 2022, Panama's lawmakers approved a bill that would legalize and regulate the use of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The bill covers using cryptocurrency, trading it, tokenizing precious metals, and issuing digital securities, among other related topics. Its passing will also allow citizens to use their cryptocurrency holdings to pay taxes.


title: Panama

text: The high levels of Panamanian trade are in large part from the Colón Free Trade Zone, the largest free trade zone in the Western Hemisphere. Last year the zone accounted for 92 percent of Panama's exports and 64 percent of its imports, according to an analysis of figures from the Colon zone management and estimates of Panama's trade by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. Panama's economy is also very much supported by the trade and export of coffee and other agricultural products.


title: Panama

text: The Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) between the governments of the United States and Panama was signed on October 27, 1982. The treaty protects US investment and assists Panama in its efforts to develop its economy by creating conditions more favorable for US private investment and thereby strengthening the development of its private sector. The BIT was the first such treaty signed by the US in the Western Hemisphere. A Panama–United States Trade Promotion Agreement (TPA) was signed in 2007, approved by Panama on July 11, 2007, and by US President Obama on October 21, 2011, and the agreement entered into force on October 31, 2012.


title: Panama

text: Panama had an estimated population of in . The proportion of the population aged less than 15 in 2010 was 29 percent. 64.5 percent of the population was between 15 and 65, with 6.6 percent of the population 65 years or older.


title: Panama

text: More than half the population lives in the Panama City–Colón metropolitan corridor, which spans several cities. Panama's urban population exceeds 75 percent, making Panama's population the most urbanized in Central America.


title: Panama

text: In 2010 the population was 65 percent Mestizo (mixed white, Native American), 12.3 percent Native American, 9.2 percent Black or African descent, 6.8 percent mulatto, and 6.7 percent White.


title: Panama

text: Ethnic groups in Panama include Mestizo people, who are a mix of European and Amerindian ancestry. Afro-Panamanians account for 15–20 percent of the population. Most Afro-Panamanians live on the Panama-Colón metropolitan area, the Darien Province, La Palma, and Bocas Del Toro. Neighborhoods in Panama City that have large black populations include: Curundu, El Chorrillo, Rio Abajo, San Joaquín, El Marañón, San Miguelito, and Santa Ana. Black Panamanians are descendants of African slaves brought to the Americas in the Atlantic Slave Trade. The second wave of black people brought to Panama came from the Caribbean during the construction of the Panama Canal. Panama also has a considerable Chinese and Indian (India) population brought to work on the canal during its construction. Most Chinese-Panamanians reside in the province of Chiriquí. Europeans and White Panamanians are a minority in Panama. Panama is also home to a small Arab community that has mosques, practises Islam, as well as a Jewish community and many synagogues.


title: Panama

text: The Amerindian population includes seven ethnic groups: the Ngäbe, Kuna (Guna), Emberá, Buglé, Wounaan, Naso Tjerdi (Teribe), and Bri Bri.


title: Panama

text: Spanish is the official and dominant language. The Spanish spoken in Panama is known as Panamanian Spanish. About 93 percent of the population speak Spanish as their first language. Many citizens who hold jobs at international levels, or at business corporations, speak both English and Spanish. About 14 percent of Panamanians speak English; this number is expected to rise because Panama now requires English classes in its public schools. Native languages, such as Ngäbere, are spoken throughout the country, mostly in their native territories. Over 400,000 Panamanians keep their native languages and customs. About 4 percent speak French and 1 percent speak Arabic.


title: Panama

text: These are the 10 largest Panamanian cities and towns. Most of Panama's largest cities are part of the Panama City Metropolitan Area.


title: Panama

text: Christianity is the main religion in Panama. An official survey carried out by the government estimated in 2015 that 63.2% of the population, or 2,549,150 people, identifies itself as Roman Catholic, and 25.0 percent as evangelical Protestant, or 1,009,740. The Jehovah's Witnesses were the third largest congregation comprising the 1.4% of the population, followed by the Adventist Church and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with the 0.6%. There is a very large Buddhist (0.4% or 18,560) and Jewish community (0.1% or 5,240) in the country.


title: Panama

text: The Baháʼí Faith community in Panama is estimated at 2.00 percent of the national population, or about 60,000 including about 10 percent of the Guaymí population.


title: Panama

text: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) claims more than 40,000 members. Smaller religious groups include Seventh-day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Episcopalians with between 7,000 and 10,000 members, Jewish and Muslim communities with approximately 10,000 members each, Hindus, Buddhists, and other Christians. Indigenous religions include Ibeorgun (among Kuna) and Mamatata (among Ngäbe). There are also a small number of Rastafarians.


title: Panama

text: During the 16th century, education in Panama was provided by Jesuits. Public education began as a national and governmental institution in 1903. The principle underlying the early education system was that children should receive different types of education in accordance with their social class and therefore the position they were expected to occupy in society.


title: Panama

text: Public education began in Panama soon after it seceded from Colombia in 1903. The first efforts were guided by an extremely paternalistic view of the goals of education, as evidenced in comments made in a 1913 meeting of the First Panamanian Educational Assembly, "The cultural heritage given to the child should be determined by the social position he will or should occupy. For this reason education should be different in accordance with the social class to which the student should be related." This elitist focus changed rapidly under US influence.


title: Panama

text: In 2010, it was estimated that 94.1 percent of the population was literate (94.7 percent of males and 93.5 percent of females). Education in Panama is compulsory for all children between ages 6 and 15. In recent decades, school enrollment at all levels, but especially at upper levels, has increased significantly. Panama participates in the PISA exams, but due to debts and unsatisfactory exam results it postponed participation until 2018.


title: Panama

text: The culture of Panama derives from European music, art and traditions brought by the Spanish to Panama. Hegemonic forces have created hybrid forms blending African and Native American culture with European culture. For example, the "tamborito" is a Spanish dance with African rhythms, themes and dance moves.


title: Panama

text: Dance is typical of the diverse cultures in Panama. The local folklore can be experienced at a multitude of festivals, through dances and traditions handed down from generation to generation. Local cities host live "reggae en español", "reggaeton", "haitiano (compas)", jazz, blues, "salsa", reggae, and rock music performances.


title: Panama

text: Outside Panama City, regional festivals take place throughout the year featuring local musicians and dancers. Panama's blended culture is reflected in traditional products, such as woodcarvings, ceremonial masks and pottery, as well as in Panama's architecture, cuisine and festivals. In earlier times, baskets were woven for utilitarian uses, but now many villages rely almost exclusively on income from the baskets they produce for tourists.


title: Panama

text: An example of undisturbed, unique culture in Panama is that of the Guna who are known for "molas". "Mola" is the Guna word for blouse, but the term "mola" has come to mean the elaborate embroidered panels made by Guna women, that make up the front and back of a Guna woman's blouse. They are several layers of cloth, varying in color, that are loosely stitched together, made using a reverse appliqué process.


title: Panama

text: The Christmas parade, known as "El desfile de Navidad", is celebrated in the capital, Panama City. This holiday is celebrated on December 25. The floats in the parade are decorated in the Panamanian colors, and women wear dresses called "pollera" and men dress in traditional montuno. In addition, the marching band in the parade, consisting of drummers, keeps crowds entertained. In the city, a big Christmas tree is lit with Christmas lights, and everybody surrounds the tree and sings Christmas carols.


title: Panama

text: Since Panama's cultural heritage is influenced by many ethnicities the traditional cuisine of the country includes ingredients from many cultures, from all over the world:


title: Panama

text: a mix of African, Spanish, and Native American techniques, dishes, and ingredients, reflecting its diverse population. Since Panama is a land bridge between two continents, it has a large variety of tropical fruits, vegetables and herbs that are used in native cooking.


title: Panama

text: The famous fish market known as the "Mercado de Mariscos" offers fresh seafood and Ceviche, a seafood dish. Small shops along the street which are called kiosco and Empanada, which is a typical latinamerican pastry, including a variety of different ingredients, either with meat or vegetarian, mostly fried. Another kind of pastry is the pastelito, with the only difference in comparison to empanadas is that they are bigger.


title: Panama

text: Typical Panamanian foods are mild-flavored, without the pungency of some of Panama's Latin American and Caribbean neighbors. Common ingredients are maize, rice, wheat flour, plantains, "yuca" (cassava), beef, chicken, pork and seafood.


title: Panama

text: Panamanian men's traditional clothing, called "montuno", consists of white cotton shirts, trousers and woven straw hats.


title: Panama

text: The traditional women's clothing is the "pollera". It originated in Spain in the 16th century, and by the early 1800s it was typical in Panama, worn by female servants, especially wet nurses ("De Zarate" 5). Later, it was adopted by upper-class women.


title: Panama

text: A "pollera" is made of "cambric" or "fine linen" (Baker 177). It is white, and is usually about 13 yards of material.


title: Panama

text: The original "pollera" consists of a ruffled blouse worn off the shoulders and a skirt with gold buttons. The skirt is also ruffled, so that when it is lifted up, it looks like a peacock's tail or a "mantilla" fan. The designs on the skirt and blouse are usually flowers or birds. Two large matching pom poms ("mota") are on the front and back, four ribbons hang from the front and back from the waist, five gold chains ("caberstrillos") hang from the neck to the waist, a gold cross or medallion on a black ribbon is worn as a choker, and a silk purse is worn at the waistline. Earrings ("zaricillos") are usually gold or coral. Slippers usually match the color of the "pollera". Hair is usually worn in a bun, held by three large gold combs that have pearls ("tembleques") worn like a crown. Quality "pollera" can cost up to $10,000, and may take a year to complete.


title: Panama

text: Today, there are different types of "polleras"; the "pollera de gala" consists of a short-sleeved ruffle skirt blouse, two full-length skirts and a petticoat. Girls wear "tembleques" in their hair. Gold coins and jewelry are added to the outfit. The "pollera montuna" is a daily dress, with a blouse, a skirt with a solid color, a single gold chain, and pendant earrings and a natural flower in the hair. Instead of an off-the-shoulder blouse it is worn with a fitted white jacket that has shoulder pleats and a flared hem.


title: Panama

text: Traditional clothing in Panama can be worn in parades, where the females and males do a traditional dance. Females gently sway and twirl their skirts, while men hold their hats in their hands and dance behind the females.


title: Panama

text: The first literature relating to Panama can be dated to 1535, with a modern literary movement appearing from the mid-19th century onwards


title: Panama

text: The US influence in Panama can be seen in the country's sports. Baseball is Panama's national sport. The Panamanian Professional Baseball League is the country's professional winter league. It was first held in 1946, but had multiple interruptions spanning several decades. The Panama national baseball team has earned one silver medal and two bronze medals at the Baseball World Cup. At least 140 Panamanian players have played professional baseball in the United States, more than any other Central American country.


title: Panama

text: Since the end of the 20th century, association football has become more popular in Panama. The top tier of domestic Panamanian football, Liga Panameña de Fútbol, was founded in 1988. The national team appeared at the FIFA World Cup for the first time in 2018, appearing in group G, facing Belgium, England and Tunisia. However, the team lost all three games, failing to advance past the group stage.


title: Panama

text: Basketball is also popular in Panama. There are regional teams as well as a squad that competes internationally.


title: Panama

text: Other popular sports include volleyball, taekwondo, golf, and tennis. A long-distance hiking trail called the TransPanama Trail is being built from Colombia to Costa Rica. Panama's women's national volleyball team competes in Central America's AFECAVOL (Asociación de Federaciones CentroAmericanas de Voleibol) zone.


title: Panama

text: Other non-traditional sports in the country have had great importance such as the triathlon that has captured the attention of many athletes nationwide and the country has hosted international competitions. Flag football has also been growing in popularity in both men and women and with international participation in world of this discipline being among the best teams in the world, the sport was introduced by Americans residing in the Canal Zone for veterans and retirees who even had a festival called the Turkey Ball. Other popular sports are American football, rugby, field hockey, softball, and other amateur sports, including skateboarding, BMX, and surfing, because the many beaches of Panama such as Santa Catalina and Venao that have hosted events the likes of ISA World Surfing Games.


title: Wuthering Heights

text: Wuthering Heights is an 1847 novel by Emily Brontë, initially published under her pen name Ellis Bell. It concerns two families of the landed gentry living on the West Yorkshire moors, the Earnshaws and the Lintons, and their turbulent relationships with the Earnshaws' foster son, Heathcliff. The novel was influenced by Romanticism and Gothic fiction.


title: Wuthering Heights

text: "Wuthering Heights" is now widely considered to be one of the greatest novels ever written in English, but contemporaneous reviews were polarised. It was controversial for its depictions of mental and physical cruelty, including domestic abuse, and for its challenges to Victorian morality and religious and societal values.


title: Wuthering Heights

text: "Wuthering Heights" was accepted by publisher Thomas Newby along with Anne Brontë's "Agnes Grey" before the success of their sister Charlotte's novel "Jane Eyre", but they were published later. After Emily's death, Charlotte edited a second edition of "Wuthering Heights", which was published in 1850. It has inspired an array of adaptations across several media, including English singer-songwriter Kate Bush's song of the same name.


title: Wuthering Heights

text: In 1801, Mr Lockwood, the new tenant at Thrushcross Grange in Yorkshire, pays a visit to his landlord, Heathcliff, at his remote moorland farmhouse, Wuthering Heights. There he meets a reserved young woman (later identified as Cathy Linton), Joseph, a cantankerous servant, and Hareton, an uneducated fellow, who presents himself as such. Everyone is sullen and inhospitable. Snowed in for the night, Lockwood reads the diary of the former inhabitant of his room, Catherine Earnshaw, and has a nightmare in which a ghostly Catherine begs to enter through the window. Awakened by Lockwood's fearful yells, Heathcliff is troubled.


title: Wuthering Heights

text: Lockwood later returns to Thrushcross Grange in heavy snow, falls ill from the cold and becomes bedridden. While he recovers, Lockwood's housekeeper Ellen "Nelly" Dean tells him the story of the strange family.


title: Wuthering Heights

text: Thirty years earlier, the Earnshaws live at Wuthering Heights with their children, Hindley and Catherine, and a servant—Nelly herself. Returning from a trip to Liverpool, Earnshaw brings home a young orphan whom he names Heathcliff; Earnshaw treats the boy as his favourite. His own children he neglects, especially after his wife dies. Hindley beats Heathcliff, who gradually becomes close friends with Catherine.


title: Wuthering Heights

text: Hindley departs for university, returning as the new master of Wuthering Heights on the death of his father three years later. He and his new wife Frances allow Heathcliff to stay, but only as a servant.


title: Wuthering Heights

text: Heathcliff and Catherine spy on Edgar Linton and his sister Isabella, children who live nearby at Thrushcross Grange. Catherine is attacked by their dog, and the Lintons take her in, sending Heathcliff home. When the Lintons visit, Hindley and Edgar make fun of Heathcliff; a fight ensues. Heathcliff is locked in the attic and vows revenge.


title: Wuthering Heights

text: Frances dies after giving birth to a son, Hareton. Two years later, Catherine becomes engaged to Edgar. She confesses to Nelly that she loves Heathcliff, and will try to help but cannot marry him because of his low social status. Nelly warns her against the plan. Heathcliff overhears part of the conversation and, misunderstanding Catherine's heart, flees the household. Catherine falls ill, distraught.


title: Wuthering Heights

text: Three years after his departure, with Edgar and Catherine having married in the meantime, Heathcliff unexpectedly returns, now a wealthy gentleman. He encourages Isabella's infatuation with him as a means of revenge on Catherine. Enraged by Heathcliff's constant presence at Thrushcross Grange, Edgar cuts off contact. Catherine responds by locking herself in her room and refusing food; pregnant with Edgar's child, she never fully recovers. At Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff gambles with Hindley, who mortgages the property to him to pay his debts. Heathcliff elopes with Isabella, but the relationship fails and they soon return.


title: Wuthering Heights

text: When Heathcliff discovers that Catherine is dying, he visits her in secret. She dies shortly after giving birth to a daughter, Cathy, and Heathcliff rages, calling on her ghost to haunt him for as long as he lives. Isabella flees south where she gives birth to Heathcliff's son, Linton. Hindley dies six months later, leaving Heathcliff as master of Wuthering Heights.


title: Wuthering Heights

text: Twelve years later, after Isabella's death, the still-sickly Linton is brought back to live with his uncle Edgar at the Grange, but Heathcliff insists that his son must instead live with him. Cathy and Linton (respectively at the Grange and Wuthering Heights) gradually develop a relationship. Heathcliff schemes to ensure that they marry, and on Edgar's death demands that the couple move in with him. He becomes increasingly wild and reveals that on the night Catherine died he dug up her grave, and ever since has been plagued by her ghost. When Linton dies, Cathy has no option but to remain at Wuthering Heights.


title: Wuthering Heights

text: Lockwood grows tired of the moors and moves away. Eight months later he arrives at Wuthering Heights while travelling through the area. He sees Nelly again, who is now the housekeeper at Wuthering Heights. She reports that Cathy has been teaching the still-uneducated Hareton to read. Heathcliff was seeing visions of the dead Catherine; he avoided the young people, saying that he could not bear to see Catherine's eyes, which they both shared, looking at him. He had stopped eating, and some days later was found dead in Catherine's old room.


title: Wuthering Heights

text: In the present, Lockwood learns that Cathy and Hareton plan to marry and move to the Grange. Joseph is left to take care of the declining Wuthering Heights. Nelly says that the locals have seen the ghosts of Catherine and Heathcliff wandering abroad together. Lockwood passes by the graves of Catherine, Edgar, and Heathcliff, and is convinced they are finally at peace.


title: Wuthering Heights

text: The original text as published by Thomas Cautley Newby in 1847 is available online in two parts. The novel was first published together with Anne Brontë's "Agnes Grey" in a three-volume format: "Wuthering Heights" filled the first two volumes and "Agnes Grey" made up the third.


title: Wuthering Heights

text: In 1850 Charlotte Brontë edited the original text for the second edition of "Wuthering Heights" and also provided it with her foreword. She addressed the faulty punctuation and orthography but also diluted Joseph's thick Yorkshire dialect. Writing to her publisher, W. S. Williams, she said that Irene Wiltshire, in an essay on dialect and speech, examines some of the changes Charlotte made.


title: Wuthering Heights

text: Early reviews of "Wuthering Heights" were mixed in their assessment. Most critics recognised the power and imagination of the novel, but were baffled by the storyline, and objected to the savagery and selfishness of the characters. In 1847, when the background of an author was given great importance in literary criticism, many critics were intrigued by the authorship of the Bell novels.


title: Wuthering Heights

text: The "Atlas" review called it a "strange, inartistic story", but commented that every chapter seems to contain a "sort of rugged power."


title: Wuthering Heights

text: "Graham's Lady Magazine" wrote: "How a human being could have attempted such a book as the present without committing suicide before he had finished a dozen chapters, is a mystery. It is a compound of vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors".


title: Wuthering Heights

text: The English poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti admired the book, writing in 1854 that it was "the first novel I've read for an age, and the best (as regards power and sound style) for two ages, except "Sidonia"", but, in the same letter, he also referred to it as "a fiend of a book – an incredible monster  [...] The action is laid in hell, – only it seems places and people have English names there".


title: Wuthering Heights

text: Until late in the 19th century ""Jane Eyre" was regarded as the best of the Brontë sisters' novels". This view began to change in the 1880s with the publication of A. Mary F. Robinson's biography of Emily in 1883.


title: Wuthering Heights

text: Similarly, Woolf's contemporary John Cowper Powys referred in 1916 to Emily Brontë's "tremendous vision".


title: Wuthering Heights

text: In 1926 Charles Percy Sanger's work on the chronology of "Wuthering Heights" "affirmed Emily's literary craft and meticulous planning of the novel and disproved Charlotte's presentation of her sister as an unconscious artist who 'did not know what she had done'." However, for a later critic, Albert J. Guerard, "it is a splendid, imperfect novel which Brontë loses control over occasionally".


title: Wuthering Heights

text: Still, in 1934, Lord David Cecil, writing in "Early Victorian Novelists", commented "that Emily Brontë was not properly appreciated; even her admirers saw her as an 'unequal genius'," and in 1948 F. R. Leavis excluded "Wuthering Heights" from the great tradition of the English novel because it was "a 'kind of sport'—an anomaly with 'some influence of an essentially undetectable kind.'"


title: Wuthering Heights

text: Writing in "The Guardian" in 2003 writer and editor Robert McCrum placed "Wuthering Heights" at number 17 in his list of 100 greatest novels of all time. And in 2015 he placed it at number 13 in his list of 100 best novels written in English. He said that


title: Wuthering Heights

text: Writing for BBC Culture in 2015 author and book reviewer Jane Ciabattari polled 82 book critics from outside the UK and presented "Wuthering Heights" as number 7 in the resulting list of 100 greatest British novels.


title: Wuthering Heights

text: In 2018 Penguin presented a list of 100 must-read classic books and placed "Wuthering Heights" at number 71, saying: "Widely considered a staple of Gothic fiction and the English literary canon, this book has gone on to inspire many generations of writersand will continue to do so".


title: Wuthering Heights

text: Writing in "The Independent" journalist and author Ceri Radford and news presenter, journalist, and TV producer Chris Harvey included "Wuthering Heights" in a list of the 40 best books to read during lockdown. Harvey said that "It's impossible to imagine this novel ever provoking quiet slumbers; Emily Brontë's vision of nature blazes with poetry".


title: Wuthering Heights

text: Likewise Virginia Woolf suggests the importance of the Yorkshire landscape of Haworth to the poetic vision of both Emily and Charlotte Brontë:


title: Wuthering Heights

text: Wuthering Heights is an old house high on the Pennine moorland of West Yorkshire. The first description is provided by Lockwood, the new tenant of the nearby Thrushcross Grange:


title: Wuthering Heights

text: Lord David Cecil in "Early Victorian Novelists" (1934) drew attention to the contrast between the two main settings in "Wuthering Heights":


title: Wuthering Heights

text: Walter Allen, in "The English Novel" (1954), likewise "spoke of the two houses in the novel as symbolising 'two opposed principles which … ultimately compose a harmony'". However, David Daiches, "in the 1965 Penguin English Library edition referred to Cecil's interpretation as being 'persuasively argued' though not fully acceptable". The entry on "Wuthering Heights" in the 2002 "Oxford Companion to English Literature", "says that the ending of the novel points to a union of 'the two contrasting worlds and moral orders represented by the Heights and the Grange'".


title: Wuthering Heights

text: There is no evidence that either Thrushcross Grange or Wuthering Heights is based on an actual building, but various locations have been speculated as inspirations. Top Withens, a ruined farmhouse in an isolated area near the Haworth Parsonage, was suggested as the model for Wuthering Heights by Ellen Nussey, a friend of Charlotte Brontë. However, its structure does not match that of the farmhouse described in the novel. High Sunderland Hall, near Law Hill, Halifax where Emily worked briefly as a governess in 1838, now demolished, has also been suggested as a model for Wuthering Heights. However, it is too grand for a farmhouse.


title: Wuthering Heights

text: Ponden Hall is famous for reputedly being the inspiration for Thrushcross Grange, since Brontë was a frequent visitor. However, it does not match the description given in the novel and is closer in size and appearance to the farmhouse of Wuthering Heights. The Brontë biographer Winifred Gerin believed that Ponden Hall was the original of Wildfell Hall, the old mansion in Anne Brontë's "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall". Helen Smart, while noting that Thrushcross Grange has "traditionally been associated with ... Ponden Hall, Stanbury, near Haworth", sees Shibden Hall, Northowram, in Halifax parish, as more likely, referring to Hilda Marsden's article "The Scenic Background of Wuthering Heights".


title: Wuthering Heights

text: Most of the novel is the story told by housekeeper Nelly Dean to Lockwood, though the novel uses several narrators (in fact, five or six) to place the story in perspective, or in a variety of perspectives. Emily Brontë uses this frame story technique to narrate most of the story. Thus, for example, Lockwood, the first narrator of the story, tells the story of Nelly, who herself tells the story of another character. The use of a character like Nelly Dean is a literary device, a well-known convention taken from the Gothic novel, the function of which is to portray the events in a more mysterious and exciting manner.


title: Wuthering Heights

text: Critics have questioned the reliability of the two main narrators. The author has been described as sarcastic toward Lockwood, who fancies himself a world-weary romantic but comes across as an effete snob, and there are subtler hints that Nelly's perspective is influenced by her own biases.


title: Wuthering Heights

text: The narrative in addition includes an excerpt from Catherine Earnshaw's old diary, and short sections narrated by Heathcliff, Isabella, and another servant.


title: Wuthering Heights

text: Brontë possessed an exceptional classical culture for a woman of the time. She was familiar with Greek tragedies and was a good Latinist. In addition she was especially influenced by the poets John Milton and William Shakespeare. There are echoes of Shakespeare's "King Lear" and "Romeo and Juliet" in "Wuthering Heights".


title: Wuthering Heights

text: Another major source of information for the Brontës was the periodicals that their father read, the "Leeds Intelligencer" and "Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine". "Blackwood's Magazine" provided knowledge of world affairs and was a source of material for the Brontës' early writing. Emily Brontë was probably aware of the debate on evolution. This debate had been launched in 1844 by Robert Chambers. It raised questions of divine providence and the violence which underlies the universe and relationships between living things.


title: Wuthering Heights

text: Romanticism was also a major influence, which included the Gothic novel, the novels of Walter Scott and the poetry of Byron. The Brontës' fiction is seen by some feminist critics as prime examples of Female Gothic. It explores the domestic entrapment and subjection of women to patriarchal authority, and the attempts to subvert and escape such restriction. Emily Brontë's Cathy Earnshaw and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre are both examples of female protagonists in such a role.


title: Wuthering Heights

text: According to Juliet Barker, Walter Scott's novel "Rob Roy" (1817) had a significant influence on "Wuthering Heights", which, though "regarded as the archetypal Yorkshire novel ... owed as much, if not more, to Walter Scott's Border country". "Rob Roy" is set "in the wilds of Northumberland, among the uncouth and quarrelsome squirearchical Osbaldistones", while Cathy Earnshaw "has strong similarities with Diana Vernon, who is equally out of place among her boorish relations" (Barker p. 501).