Puerto Armuelles

Puerto Armuelles, Pacific Ocean seaport, western Panama. It is located on Charco Azul bay, west-southwest of David, near the border with Costa Rica. It was long a centre of banana cultivation and the headquarters of the Chiriquí Land Company, a subsidiary of Chiquita Brands International, Inc. (formerly United Fruit Company), but the subsidiary was sold in 2003, and banana production subsequently declined. The port was developed in the 1930s to serve the banana-growing region. In the 1970s a terminal was established farther to the south for transshipping crude petroleum from the Pacific to the Caribbean coast, at first via Panama Canal tankers and later through a pipeline northward across the isthmus. Pop. (2000) 22,755; (2010) 20,455.