Monument to Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, Monument in Panama City, Panama

The Monument to Vasco Nunez de Balboa is a bronze statue along the Cinta Costera waterfront in Panama City, showing the explorer with a Spanish flag in his left hand and a sword in his right, facing Panama Bay. The stone base below him holds four human figures arranged around a globe, supporting the main figure above.

The monument was inaugurated on September 29, 1924, with representatives from 15 Latin American countries attending the ceremony to mark Balboa's expedition. King Alfonso XIII of Spain offered the statue as a gift to Panama in recognition of that voyage.

The four nude figures around the globe represent the races, as the sources call them, and the monument was donated by King Alfonso XIII in 1921. At the 1924 inauguration, President Belisario Porras said he wanted the statue to be greeted by the flags of all nations and men of all races, a symbol of racial solidarity.

The statue stands along Balboa Avenue on the Cinta Costera, a waterfront promenade that is easy to walk along from nearby neighborhoods. Visiting in the early morning gives better light for photography and a quieter setting along the seafront.

The monument was a gift from King Alfonso XIII of Spain, sent in 1921 to President Belisario Porras, and it cost an estimated 65,000 Spanish pesetas. Porras, moved by Balboa's feat, had it inaugurated on 29 September 1924 before some 6,000 people, with delegations from 15 Latin American countries present. The statue stayed in its original spot when the Cinta Costera was built on reclaimed land.