Darien Province
Darién's Pan-American Highway gap funnels 302,000 migrants (2024) through jungle that isolates indigenous communities with 40% multidimensional poverty.
Darién marks where the Pan-American Highway ends and jungle begins—the gap in the Americas' road network that migration flows traverse despite the dangers. The province's 40% multidimensional poverty rate reflects infrastructure absence that isolation creates, though this figure improves upon the 90%+ rates in indigenous comarcas.
Migrant transit through the Darién Gap dropped from 520,085 in 2023 to 302,203 in 2024, the flows that strain host communities primarily comprising indigenous populations and Afro-descendants already characterized by structural exclusion. The province functions as transit zone rather than destination, the attention it receives relating to border management rather than development investment.
The rainforest that makes road construction impractical also provides the biodiversity that conservation values, the Darién National Park protecting ecosystems that development would destroy. Whether the province can benefit from conservation—or whether its function remains absorbing migration flows that richer areas refuse—depends on whether ecological assets translate into economic opportunity for residents rather than merely global heritage designation.