Yaviza is a town and

corregimiento ''Corregimiento'' (; , ) is a Spanish term used for country subdivisions for royal administrative purposes, ensuring districts were under crown control as opposed to local elites. A ''corregimiento'' was usually headed by a '' corregidor''. The ...

Pinogana District Pinogana District () is a district (''distrito'') of Darién Province in Panama. The population according to the 2000 census was 12,823; the latest estimate (for 2019) is 26,160.Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censo, Panama. The district co ...

Darién Province Darién (, ; ) is a Provinces of Panama, province in Panama whose capital city is La Palma, Darién, La Palma. With an area of , it is located at the eastern end of the country and bordered to the north by the province of Panamá Province, Panam ...

Panama Panama, officially the Republic of Panama, is a country in Latin America at the southern end of Central America, bordering South America. It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north, and ...

with a population of 4,441 as of 2010.

Location

The town marks the southeastern end of the northern half of the

Pan-American Highway The Pan-American Highway is a vast network of roads that stretches about 30,000 kilometers (about 19,000 miles) from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, in the northernmost part of North America to Ushuaia, Argentina, at the southern tip of South America. I ...

, at the north end of the

Darién Gap The Darién Gap (, , ) is a geographic region that connects the Americas, American continents, stretching across southern Panama's Darién Province and the northern portion of Colombia's Chocó Department. Consisting of a large drainage basin, ...

.Leonard, Thomas M
Historical Dictionary of Panama
p. xxxv (2015) It lies on the Chucunaque River, a major tributary of the

Tuira River The Tuira River is located in the Darién Province of eastern Panama. It flows into the Bay of San Miguel, Panama, Bay of San Miguel at the province capital of La Palma, Panama, La Palma. It is the largest river in Panama, and one of its tribu ...

, along which travel by boat into the Darién Gap occurs. The nearest town on the river route is

El Real de Santa María El Real de Santa María is a Corregimientos of Panama, corregimiento in Pinogana District, Darién Province, Panama with a population of 1,183 as of 2010. It is the seat of Pinogana District. Its population as of 1990 was 1,201; its population as ...

, which is the capital of

Demographics

The population of Yaviza as of 1990 was 8,452, falling to 3,317 as recorded in the year 2000, and rising to 4,441 as of 2010.

History

The town was founded by Spanish missionaries as San Jerónimo de Yaviza in September 1638.Rutkow, Eric
The Longest Line on the Map
p. 322 (2019) A Spanish fort (Fuerte de San Geronimo de Yaviza) was built in 1760, and heavily damaged by an attack of the Indigenous

Guna Guna may refer to: People * Guna people, Indigenous peoples of Panama and Colombia Philosophy * Guṇa, a Hindu philosophical concept * Guṇa (Jainism), a philosophical concept Places * Guna district, in Madhya Pradesh, India ** Guna, Indi ...

in 1780.Lonely Planet Panama
p. 427 (2022) A flood destroyed half of the remaining ruins in the mid-20th century.Jimenez, Raul E. (6 August 2018

''La Prensa'' (in Spanish) Darien_Gap_OSM

As the

was constructed, it eventually reached Yaviza as a dirt road. But plans to complete the road to Colombia were stopped, leaving Yaviza as the end point of the northern half of the highway.Johnson, Tim (25 October 1992)
Panama revives dream of completing highway that would link the Americas
''Monitor'' (

McAllen, Texas McAllen is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in Hidalgo County. It is located at the southern tip of the state in the Rio Grande Valley, on the Mexican border. The city limits extend south to the Rio Grande, acros ...

; Knight Ridder content) ("Engineers slashed the highway -- really just a dirt track barely passable in the rainy season -- through to Yaviza in 1983.") The final sections of the highway to Yaviza have since been improved and are now paved.Howe, Ben Ryder (March 2001)
The Forgotten Highway
''The Atlantic'' ("The government, under pressure from the peasants, has announced that it will begin paving the road to Yaviza.")

References

Corregimientos of Darién Province Populated places in Darién Province Populated places established in 1638 {{Darién-geo-stub