Panama

The bridge between two oceans

Nation: Panama National Day: 19.10.00

If you stand on the peaks of Panama's hills, on the one side you can see the Atlantic and on the other side the Pacific Ocean. The country is located at the narrowest piece of the land bridge between Central And South America. An ideal place to build a canal to link the oceans.

Because it dominates the country, the Panama Canal is also the focal point of the exhibition. The presentation starts in the outer area of the pavilion with a model of the Miraflores lock. This is the first of many locks which all ships have to pass through on the 80 kilometre journey from the Pacific to the Atlantic coast. Sound and picture documents explain the complicated system of locks to the visitor: during a journey of eight to ten hours, the ships are raised 26 metres above sea level and then brought back down to sea level again.

Inside the pavilion, the visitor can then walk through a reconstruction of the Panamese rain forest and see its flora and fauna. The work of sculptors and goldsmiths recall the country's Indian roots.