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The Isthmus of Panama, also historically known as the Isthmus of Darien, is the narrow strip of land that lies between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, linking North and South America. It contains the country of Panama and the Panama Canal. Like many isthmuses, it is a location of great strategic value. The isthmus was arguably formed 12 to 15 million years ago.〔(Land Bridge Linking Americas Rose Earlier Than Thought, LiveScience.com )〕 This major geological event separated the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and caused the creation of the Gulf Stream. The Isthmus of Panama is the only place in the world at which one can see the sun rise in the Pacific and set in the Atlantic, due to a bend in the Isthmus. == History == (詳細はVasco Núñez de Balboa heard of the South Sea from natives while sailing along the Caribbean coast. On 25 September 1513 he saw the Pacific. In 1519 the town of Panamá was founded near a small indigenous settlement on the Pacific coast. After the discovery of Peru, it developed into an important port of trade and became an administrative centre. In 1671 the Welsh pirate Henry Morgan crossed the Isthmus of Panamá from the Caribbean side and destroyed the city. The town was relocated some kilometers to the west at a small peninsula. The ruins of the old town, Panamá Viejo, are preserved and were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997. Silver and gold from the viceroyalty of Peru were transported overland across the isthmus to Porto Bello, where Spanish treasure fleets shipped them to Seville and Cádiz from 1707. Lionel Wafer spent four years between 1680 and 1684 among the Cuna Indians. Scotland tried to establish a settlement in 1698 through the Darien scheme. The California Gold Rush, starting in 1849, brought a large increase in the transportation of people from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Steamships brought gold seekers from eastern US ports who trekked across the isthmus by foot, horse, and later rail. On the Pacific side, they boarded Pacific Mail Steamship Company vessels headed for San Francisco. Ferdinand de Lesseps, the man behind the Suez Canal, started a Panama Canal Company in 1880 that went bankrupt in 1889 in a scandal. In 1902–4, the United States forced Colombia to grant independence to the department of the isthmus, bought the remaining assets of the Panama Canal Company, and finished the canal in 1914. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Isthmus of Panama」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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