Panama City

Panama City is a city in and the county seat of Bay County, Florida, United States.^[5] Located along U.S. Route 98, it is the largest city between Tallahassee and Pensacola. It is the more populated of two principal cities of the Panama City-Lynn Haven, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2020 census,the population was 32,939. Panama City was catastrophically damaged when Hurricane Michael made landfall as a Category 5 hurricane on October 10, 2018. When Panama City was incorporated in 1909, its original city limits were 15th Street (Hwy 98) on the north, Balboa Avenue on the west and Bay Avenue on the east.

The development in this once unincorporated part of Northwest Florida had previous names such as Floriopolis, Park Resort, and Harrison.^[6] In 1906, the development was named Panama City and it was first incorporated as Panama City in 1909. When Panama City was incorporated in 1909, its original city limits were 15th Street (Hwy 98) on the north, Balboa Avenue on the west and Bay Avenue on the east. According to the Panama City Public Library's A History of Panama City,^[7] George Mortimer West hoped to spur real estate development in Bay County during a period of intense popular interest in the construction of the Panama Canal by changing the town's name from Harrison to Panama City, because a straight line between Chicago and the Central American country Panama's national capital intersected the Florida town. Additionally, since required meanders around land formations in a seaborne route to the canal added distance when starting at other ports, Panama City was the closest developed port in the US mainland to the Caribbean entrance of the Panama Canal.