Chiriqui Province
Chiriquí's highland agriculture (Boquete coffee, David trade hub) achieves Panama's highest rural incomes while adjacent indigenous areas show 93% poverty.
Chiriquí functions as Panama's breadbasket, the highlands producing coffee, oranges, and strawberries that the country consumes while Boquete's specialty coffee commands premium export prices. The Central Mountain Range creates diverse microclimates that support agricultural variety unusual for tropical latitudes, David city emerging as regional trade hub connecting highland farms to national markets.
The province achieves among Panama's highest per-capita incomes outside the canal corridor, the export-oriented agriculture and livestock generating prosperity that subsistence farming elsewhere cannot match. Boquete attracts retiree migration alongside agrotourism, North American and European expatriates purchasing property that gentrifies the highland town while creating service employment for locals.
The contrast with adjacent indigenous comarcas—Ngäbe-Buglé extending across portions of Chiriquí—exemplifies Panama's internal inequality. Commercial agriculture operates alongside communities where 93% experience multidimensional poverty, the proximity highlighting rather than bridging the development gap. Whether Chiriquí's prosperity diffuses—or whether the province remains an island of relative wealth—depends on integration that current patterns do not demonstrate.