Place:Veraguas, Panama

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Veraguas is a province of Panama, located in the centre-west of the country. The capital is the city of Santiago de Veraguas. It is the only Panamanian province to border both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It covers an area of 10,587.6 km² and in 2019 it had an estimated population of 247,644.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Veraguas was originally inhabited by the Veraguas culture.

Veraguas was explored by Christopher Columbus on his fourth voyage. He tried to establish the first colony in the new Spanish mainland but failed due to resistance from Indigenous peoples. Diego de Nicuesa also tried to establish a colony and failed, which made him create a colony to fight against the Indigenous population, which he named Nombre de Dios. Its capital, Santiago de Veraguas, was founded about 1636.

It is said that its name comes from the indigenous word "Veracua" or "Viragua", though other theories abound. It is the only province in Panama with coastlines on both the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. The majority of people live on the Pacific side; the Caribbean coast is mostly uninhabited.

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