Panama City

Panama City (Spanish: Ciudad de Panamá) is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Panama. It has a population of 880,691, with a total metro population of 1,440,381, and is located at the Pacific entrance of the Panama Canal, in the province of Panama. The city is the political and administrative center of the country, as well as a hub for international banking and commerce. It is considered a "beta-" world city, one of three Central American cities listed in this category.

The city of Panama has an average GDP per capita of $15,300. It has a dense skyline of mostly high-rise buildings, and it is surrounded by a large belt of tropical rainforest. Panama's Tocumen International Airport, the largest and busiest airport in Central America, offers daily flights to major international destinations. Panama was chosen as the 2003 American Capital of Culture jointly with Curitiba, Brazil. It is among the top five places for retirement in the world, according to International Living magazine.

Panama

Coordinates: 9°N 80°W / 9°N 80°W / 9; -80

Panama (ⁱ/ˈpænəmɑː/ PAN-ə-mah; Spanish: Panamá [panaˈma]), officially called the Republic of Panama (Spanish: República de Panamá), is a country in Central America situated between North and South America. It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The capital and largest city is Panama City, whose metropolitan area is home to nearly half of the country's 3.9 million people.

Panama was inhabited by several indigenous tribes prior to settlement by the Spanish in the 16th century. Panama broke away from Spain in 1821 and joined a union of Nueva Granada, Ecuador, and Venezuela named the Republic of Gran Colombia. When Gran Colombia dissolved in 1831, Panama and Nueva Granada remained joined, eventually becoming the Republic of Colombia. With the backing of the United States, Panama seceded from Colombia in 1903, allowing the Panama Canal to be built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers between 1904 and 1914. In 1977, an agreement was signed for the total transfer of the Canal from the United States to Panama by the end of the 20th century, which culminated on 31 December 1999.

City Beach

City Beach can refer to:

Panama City Beach, Florida

Panama City Beach is a city in Bay County, Florida, United States, on the Gulf of Mexico coast. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 12,018. The city is often referred to under the umbrella term of "Panama City", despite being a distinct municipality from the older and larger inland Panama City to the east, making Panama City and Panama City Beach two separate cities. Panama City Beach's slogan is "The World's Most Beautiful Beaches" due to the unique sugar-white sandy beaches of northwest Florida.

Panama City Beach has been a popular vacation destination, especially among people in the Southern United States. The city is also a very popular spring break destination, sometimes having been referred to as "The Spring Break Capital of the World," due to about 100,000+ college and high school students who would arrive during the months of March and April.

Real estate boom

A construction boom in the early to mid 2000s changed the image of the area due to the older homes and motels being replaced with high-rise condominiums and more expansive homes. However, this is turning unobstructed, low-rise beach views and affordable waterfront property into rarities. At the peak of the real estate boom, many beachfront properties had quadrupled or more in value since 2000. In November 2006 CNN/Money named Panama City Beach the No. 1 real estate market in America for the next five years in. Beachfront property has sold for upwards of $60,000 per "front foot" (linear foot) at the top of the market. The downturn in the U.S. real estate market in 2007, combined with a surge of new condo construction, brought spiraling prices somewhat under control. With the real estate boom, Panama City Beach became a well known destination for Spring Break.

Holiday Inn

Holiday Inn is a multinational brand of hotels, which are part of the LSE-listed InterContinental Hotels Group. Originally a U.S. motel chain, today it is one of the world's largest hotel chains, with 435,299 bedrooms in 3,463 hotels globally hosting over 100 million guest nights each year. The hotel chain is based in three cities: Atlanta, London and Rio de Janeiro.

History

1950s–1970s

Kemmons Wilson, a resident of Memphis, Tennessee, was inspired to build his own motel after being disappointed by poor quality and inconsistent roadside accommodation during a family road trip to Washington, D.C. The name Holiday Inn was given to the original hotel by his architect Eddie Bluestein as a joke, in reference to the 1942 Christmas-themed, musical film Holiday Inn, starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire. The first Holiday Inn opened at 4925 Summer Avenue in Memphis, the main highway to Nashville, in August 1952 as Holiday Inn Hotel Courts. In the early 1990s, it was demolished, but there is a plaque commemorating the site.