Panama

Panama stamps available online at Io Collezionista. Panama was reached by the Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century and gained independence only in 1819, when it joined what was known as Gran Colombia (1819-1831), the state willed into being by Simon Bolivar, which took in parts of present day Guyana, Brazil and Peru as well as Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela. The origin of the name remains uncertain and several theories compete: according to the official explanation given by the Panamanian Ministry of Education the word comes from the abundance of fish, trees and butterflies, which may indirectly support a legend of the colonial period that tells of a fishing village called Panama, a name that means precisely abundance of fish.