Panama Canal Zone

The Panama Canal Zone was a strip of territory about ten miles wide along the Panama Canal, administered by the United States from 1903 to 1979 under the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty. It had its own government, courts, police and schools, and its American residents, the Zonians, lived largely apart from Panamanians. The riots of January 1964 over the right to fly the Panamanian flag hastened the Torrijos–Carter Treaties, under which the zone was abolished on 1 October 1979.