Santa Isabel District is a district of the Province of Colón Province. The population according to the 2000 census was 3,323. The district covers a total area of 729 km².
The district is divided administratively into the following townships:
- Santa Isabel (capital),
- Palenque,
- Cuango,
- Miramar,
- Nombre de Dios,
- Palmira,
- Playa Chiquita
- Viento Frío.
Towns in this area are primarily sleepy caribbean fishing villages, whose inhabitants are decedents of the Cimarrons (Cimarrones). The Cimarrons, were enslaved Africans who had escaped from their Spanish masters and lived together as outlaws. Many speak English with a Bajan (Jamaican) Accent.
In the 1570s, they allied with Sir Francis Drake of England to defeat the Spanish conquest and plunder their riches. In Sir Francis Drake Revised (1572), Drake describes the Cimarrons as "a black people which about eighty years past fled from the Spaniards their masters, by reason of their cruelty, and are since grown to a nation, under two kings of their own. The one inhabiteth to the west, the other to the east of the way from Nombre de Dios” .
These villages are experiencing a surge in interest in real estate due to improvements in access roads by the government, beautiful caribbean waters, lower tide tables (10-14 inches compared to 16+ feet on the Pacific), and lower land prices than other areas of Panama.
