Panama Panama with an area of approximately 29,700 sq. miles is located between Costa Rica and Colombia and forms the narrowest and lowest section of the Isthmus which links North and South America. Shaped like a letter “S”, the country has a width that varies between 31 to 115 miles and has a coastline of 490 miles on the Atlantic Ocean and 870 miles on the Pacific Ocean. The population of Panama is around 3.2 million, with over half living in urban areas. Spanish is widely spoken, but many of the people in Panama including businesses, top Government Officials and Executive Staff are fully bilingual. Panama time is five hours behind Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and one hour ahead of Central American countries. UK Nationals do not require visa’s just a valid passport. The famous Panama Canal joins the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans; it is about 50 miles long and is the land bridge between two continents, making it a crossroads of the World. Each year hundreds of cruise ships travel through the Canal. Panama City is the country’s capital and the principal commercial centre. It lies on the Gulf of Panama on the Pacific Ocean side and is the only city in the world that has a tropical rain forest within it's city limits.