Ethnic Groups in Panama

Panama is a country of a great variety of culture and traditions. It is a diverse, unique and complex environment. The country's ethnic diversity is reflected in traditional products, such as wood carvings, ceremonial masks and pottery, as well as in its architecture, cuisine and festivals.

To visit Panama is to impress the senses, where indigenous and european cultures combine to create a country without equal. Panama's architecture is a reflection of the different groups that make their home here. The Guna Yala region, home of the Guna Indians with their traditional huts. Embera-Wounaan Indians houses are set about 20-50 feet apart atop the rise on posts, with no walls, but tall thatched roofs. Ngabe - Bugles houses are supported by sticks with a grass or zinc roof and dirt floor. Houses that stands in contrast to the homes built by Swiss, Yugoslavian, Swedish, German, French and American immigrants in styles unique to their respective countries

Casco Antiguo is the World Heritage Site recognized by UNESCO in 1997. The older part of Panama City, currently undergoing restoration, is a site of great historical and architectural importance, and was declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO on December 6, 1997.

Visitors to the site can see homes built at the beginning of the last century, narrow lanes with ancient ruins, beautiful colonial churches, the National Theater, the Church of San Jose, with its famous golden altar that was saved from pirates and the ruins of the Convent of Santo Domigo and its famous Flat Arch, which is over 300 years old. Panama City also has several museums, such as the Canal Museum, the History Museum, and the Reina Torres de Arauz Museum, which focuses on the anthropology of the isthmus the art Museum, the Afro Antilleans Museum and the Museum of Natural Sciences - among others.