Demographics of Panama

Panama's population was 4,351,267 people in 2021, compared to 860,000 in 1950.^[3][4] The proportion of the population aged below 15 in 2010 was 29%. 64.5% of the population were aged between 15 and 65, with 6.6% of the population being 65 years or older.^[5]

^[a]

Source:^[9]

More than half the population lives in the Panama City-Colón metropolitan corridor.

Bocas
del Toro

Coclé

Colón

Chiriquí

Darién

Herrera

Los Santos

Panamá
Oeste

Panamá

Veraguas

Guna Yala

Emberá

Emberá

Naso
Tjër Di

Ngäbe-Buglé

Madugandí

Wargandí

Registration of vital events (especially deaths) was in Panama not complete until the end of the 20th century. The Population Departement of the United Nations prepared the following estimates.^[5]

^[6][10]

(p)=preliminary data

The culture, customs, and language of Panama are predominantly Caribbean Spanish. In 2010 the population was 65% Mestizo (mixed European and Amerindian), 12.3% Native Panamanians, 9.2% black, 6.8% mulattoes, and 6.7% white.^[11] According to the 2023 census 17.2% of the population were native Panamanians, 31.7% was of (part) African descent, while the remainder (51%) were mestizo (mixed European and Amerindian) and whites.^[12]

European Panamanians or Caucasian ethnic groups in Panama include Spanish, British and Irish, Dutch, French, Germans, Italians, Portuguese, Poles, Russians or Ukrainians (a large number are Jews), Greeks, and Americans.

Panama has a considerable population of Asians origin; in particular Chinese, West Asians (Lebanese, and Palestinians and Syrians) and South Asians (from India and Pakistan). The first Chinese immigrated to Panama from southern China in the 19th century to help build the Panama Railroad. There followed several waves of immigrants, especially after the 1970s, when the ensuing decades saw up to 80,000 immigrants from all over China. At least 50,000 Panamanians are ethnically Chinese, though some estimates count as many as 135,000. Most of the Chinese population reside in the province of Chiriquí. Some studies suggest that almost 1 million Panamanians have at least one Chinese ancestor.^[13][14]

Afro-Panamanians first arrived during the colonial era. They are intermixed in the general population or live in small Afro-Panamanian communities along the Atlantic Coast and in villages within the Darién jungle. Most of the people in Darien are fishermen or small-scale farmers growing crops such as bananas, rice and coffee as well as raising livestock. Other Afro-Panamanians descend from later migrants from the Caribbean who came to work on railroad-construction projects, commercial agricultural enterprises, and (especially) the canal. Important Afro-Caribbean community areas include towns and cities such as Colón, Cristobal and Balboa, in the former Canal Zone, as well as the Río Abajo area of Panama City. Another region with a large Afro-Caribbean population is the province of Bocas del Toro on the Caribbean coast just south of Costa Rica.^[15]

Most of the Panamanian population of West Indian descent owe their presence in the country to the monumental efforts to build the Panama Canal in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Three-quarters of the 50,000 workers who built the canal were Afro-Caribbean migrants from the British West Indies. Thousands of Afro-Caribbean workers were recruited from Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad.^[15]

Many languages, including seven indigenous languages, are spoken in Panama, although Spanish is the official and dominant language. The local variant is Panamanian Spanish. English is sometimes spoken by many professionals and those working in the business or governmental sectors of society.

Indigenous languages include Guaymí, Kuna, Northern Embera and Teribe. Bocas del Toro Creole is also spoken.

The majority of Panamanians are Christian; most are Roman Catholics as a result centuries of Spanish colonial influence. Other faiths exist in Panama by the country's tolerance and freedom of religion, there are large Protestant, Jewish, Bahá'í, Muslim and Hindu religious groups in Panama.

• Panama
• Ethnic groups in Central America