Christopher Columbus named it “Rio de los Lagartos,” meaning “river of crocodiles.” The area of the river was called Charge, so the river soon came to be called El Rio de Charge. And so it went on for three hundred years, until the letter “s” was added to the river’s name, and the Rio Chagres was formed. The upper river, the catchment area, and several of its tributaries lie within the Chagres National Park, created in 1985.
The river is dammed twice, and the resulting reservoirs, Lake Gatun and Lake Alajuela are an integral part of the Panama Canal. Although the natural course of the river is directed northwest to the mouth of the Caribbean Sea, the river’s waters also flow through the canal’s locks into the Gulf of Panama to the south. It can therefore be concluded that the Rio Chagres drains its waters into two oceans.
