Canal Zone , also Called Panama Canal Zone , a historical administrative unit in Panama, over the United States exercised jurisdictional rights from 1903 to 1979. It was a 16 km wide strip of land along the Panama Canal , stretching from the Atlantic to to Panama Canal extended the Pacific and bisecting the Isthmus of Panama . It covered 1,432 square kilometers, about a third of which was water (mainly Gatun Lake). The Canal Zone had two administrative divisions that districts Balboa (Pacific) and Cristobal (Atlantic). Balboa Heights was the administrative seat of both the Canal Zone government and the Panama Canal Company.
Read more about this topic Panama:Panama Canal and coastal ports ... The side of the channel that channel zone , was controlled by the United States. By treaties between the two countries in... The Canal Zone was created on May 4, 1904 ("Acquisition Day") under the terms of the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty of 1903 by which Panama granted the United States the sole right to use the Canal and about 8 km of land on each side to operate and control. The canal was built between 1904 and 1914. In the 1951 reorganization, administration of the canal and adjacent land was entrusted to two closely related U.S. agencies, the Panama Canal Company (responsible for the operation of the canal itself) and the Canal Zone Government (responsible) for civilian rule in the zone ). The Governor of the Canal Zone, appointed by the President of the United States and overseen by the Secretary of the Army, was ex officio President and Director of the Panama Canal Company.
The zone was abolished on October 1, 1979 with the return of direct civilian control to Panama under a treaty signed in 1977. A joint US-Panamanian commission operated the canal until late 1999, when Panama took full control.