Friday marked the 100th anniversary of the opening of the Panama Canal, a 77.1km waterway across Central America connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and a key conduit for international trade.
France began work on the canal in 1881, but was thwarted by engineering problems and disease. The United States took over the project in 1904, and spent a decade completing one of the largest and most difficult engineering projects the world had seen. The canal officially opened on August 15, 1914.
The US owned and controlled the canal until the 1977 Torrijos-Carter Treaties provided for its handover to Panama. After a period of joint control, the canal was taken over by the Panamanian government in 1999 - and most of the American residents of the Panama Canal Zone packed up and went home.
The zone, stretching 80km from the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific and jutting 8km inland either side of the waterway, was purchased in 1904 by the US for US$10 million and an annual lease of US$250,000. The lease was in perpetuity, which made the territory, though never a US state, an autonomous region within Panama, initially established to house, feed, school and entertain the tens of thousands of workers who built the canal and, later, to provide a pleasant living environment for US administrators and military personnel. In 1936, a naval officer based in the zone fathered John McCain, who would become, in 2008, the Republican nominee for the US presidency.
Reminders of its former inhabitants - the Americans among them call themselves Zonians and host annual reunions in the US - can be seen across the zone.
Chinese-Panamanian Edisa Yau Chen, in Panama City. Ethnic Chinese make up 5 per cent of Panama's population. Many are descendants of the Chinese who arrived to work on the Panama Canal in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Edisa's grandfather came to Panama to set up a shop to serve the canal's workforce and married her grandmother, a local woman.
Discarded buses litter a field at the former Howard Air Force Base. The base was closed on November 1, 1999, as a result of the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, which specified that US military facilities in the zone be closed. For more than 50 years, the base had been the bastion of US air power in Central and South America. In its heyday, it was the centre for counternarcotics operations, military and humanitarian airlifts and search and rescue operations. The buses, known locally as the "diablos rojos" (red devils), were used, some until as recently as last year, to ferry children to school.
An empty classroom at the Panamanian navy school, close to the Bridge of the Americas. The building once housed the Florida State University-Panama. The first campus was established in 1957 and served as an academic institution where the US military and civilians living in the Panama Canal Zone could continue their education.
German-American Maria Kisling, 22, whose father, a soldier, was once stationed in Panama. Following her parents' divorce, she decided to move to the town of Balboa, in the Panama Canal Zone, where she had spent some years living as a child. Balboa was founded by the US.
The Panama Canal – past, present and future
Coming together piece by piece, the Panama Canal under construction on May 30, 1913. Photo: AFP
Children paint during an event in January in Panama City as part of celebrations for the 100-year anniversary of the Panama Canal. The event broke a Guinness World Record, with 5,084 children painting a massive mural together at the same time for three minutes. Photo: Reuters
The Panama Canal is undergoing a US$5.3 billion expansion, which is expected to be completed next year. Wider, deeper channels and locks will serve larger ships carrying more goods. Photo: EPA
