Cerro Punta, Chiriquí

Cerro Punta is a small city in the western highlands of Panama, in the province of Chiriquí. Cerro Punta's altitude is 6,500 feet (2,000 metres) above sea level just south of the Continental Divide. Many of the inhabitants of the village and the surrounding areas are indigenous Native Americans. The climate, like the rest of Panama, is tropical with a short dry season and rainy season that extends about 9 – 10 months of the year. Night time temperatures are often cool due to Cerro Punta's relatively high elevation. During the 1970s much of the land was used for cultivating strawberries; households also maintained small mixed-vegetable gardens. The village can be reached by traveling north from the Pan-American highway.

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Coordinates: 8°51′N 82°34′W / 8.85°N 82.567°W / 8.85; -82.567

Toponymy

Cerro Punta is named after a hill with that forms which is the highest point of the village at 2300 meters. The original name Cerro de Punta, original name is credited to the Chircana poet Caval Beatriz Miranda, who taught grade school in Cerro Punta. In the 1940s in a meeting to choose the name of the town said: "Cerro Punta your name is written in your mountains."

Geography

Cerro Punta has a fairly rugged terrain, with small plains, where most people live. Outside the main area of the city the houses are widely spaced and the surrounding area is cultivated.

Chiriqui is the most mountainous and highest district in Panama.

Villas

The township is divided into villas, The Miranda, Guadalupe, Las Nubes, and Bajo Grande, all of which are situated above 2,000 meters.

Average annual temperatures range between 10 °C and 15 °C

Frost snow in crops

Have been recorded minimum temperatures of 0 °C to -1 °C. The minimum temperatures are not welcome by the community in cases of hail because it is a purely agricultural village and hailstorms cause this phenomenon which causes damage to crops such as potatoes, lettuce, coffee and others.

Demographics

60% white and mestizo

30% indigenous

10% foreign

Economy

The economy is based on agriculture. The land is very fertile as a result of being on the slopes of a dormant volcano and the coolness and wetness resulting from the elevation. Northern Chiriqui has a different kind of weather the rest of the country, provides the enabling environment to practice a type of seed would be impossible to practice in the rest of the country because it is merely located in Central tropical, facing the Caribbean.

Tourism

Tourism has been another source of income in recent years as the region has a temperate type - cold in one of the more tropical regions of higher humidity and rainfall in the world, which is very interesting even for national living in the rest of the country and much more for tourists, not that one can enjoy the change of climate, enjoy different ecosystems in one day up to the paramo.

At the last town of Cerro Punta, Guadalupe, 2197 m can be seen that agriculture predominates but ecotourism is opening up to the region, as many come to enjoy and study its climate and flora and fauna of the Parque Internacional La Amistad ( Panama and Costa Rica) which, being so large a region can be appreciated only species that live here and others in danger of extinction, such as can raise more on their ecological trails, hiking, rafting (the rivers flowing of the great mountains are conducive to the sport) and the rugged geography is practiced much the longboarding.

If you get off of Guadalupe to the central town of Cerro Punta is the quality of this key to the country community for its agricultural products.

Is proud horse racing since the great racehorses of Panama come from there. At temperatures between 10 and 20 °C and rising, horses develop better lung capacity allowing these thoroughbreds being the best in the world, winning the great classics of the country and internationally recognized awards, including the international classic Caribbean.

Crudely translated from the es.wikipedia.org article.