History of the Panama Canal
During World War II, the canal proved a vital part of the U.S. military strategy, allowing ships to transfer easily between the Atlantic and Pacific. Politically, the Canal remained a territory of the United States until 1977, when the Torrijos–Carter Treaties began the process of transferring territorial control of the Panama Canal Zone to Panama, a process completed on 31 December 1999.
Zonian
A Zonian is a person associated with the Panama Canal Zone, a political entity which existed between 1903 and the absorption of the Canal Zone into the Republic of Panama between 1980 and 2000. Many Zonians are descendants of the civilian American workers who came to the area during the early 1900s to work and maintain the canal. Today Zonians might work at the canal itself. Others may have been American citizens born in the Canal Zone or who spent their childhood there. A significant presence of American canal workers remained in the Canal region until 1999.