Coco Solo

Coco Solo was a submarine base of the U.S. Navy, which was established in 1918 in the Atlantic Ocean on the north west side of the Panama Canal Zone near Colon.

U.S. Senator John McCain was born there in 1936 at the Navy Hospital on the Coco Solo Naval Air Station.

Coco Solo Hospital was built in the summer of 1941. The territory which belonged to the civil part of the Panama Canal, was assigned to the so-called Executive Order 8981 on December 17, 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt of the Navy. During the Second World War Coco Iceland additionally served as a base of a P -38 Lightning aircraft squadron of the Navy.

From the 1960s there were no ships in the Navy more locally, but only staff and houses. Coco Solo was also home to the Atlantic Side High School, Cristobal Jr Sr High, which were in the 1970s and the High School for Panamanians from Rainbow City.

From the early 1980s to the mid-1990s, was used as a residential area and administrative area for operations of the nearby facilities of Galeta Iceland Coco Solo of the U.S. Navy, the Marine Corps and the Army.

After the return of the Panama Canal to Panama in 1999, the U.S. military ended its activities both in Coco Solo, as well as in Iceland Galeta.

Coco Solo is home to two large container terminals, including the Manzanillo International Terminal, the largest container terminal in Latin America.