The landscape is mountainous with lowlands on both coastlines, streams, wooded slopes and a wide area of savannah-covered plains and rolling hills called El Interior, between the Azuero peninsula and the Central Mountains.

The Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean are linked by the man-made Panama Canal, cut into a gap between the Cordillera de Talamanca and the San Blas mountain range, stretching for over 65km (40 miles); the length of the Canal is often referred to as 80km 50 miles) as this is the distance between deep-water points of entry.

Only about a quarter of the country is inhabited. The majority of the population live either around the Canal and main cities of Panama City and Colón, or in the Pacific lowlands and the adjacent mountains.

(40% of the population are concentrated in the two cities which control the entrance and exit of the Canal.)