CHAGRES, a seaport of Colombia, in the state of Panama, situated on the northern side of the Isthmus of Panama, about 12 miles W.S.W. of Colon or Aspinwall, at the mouth of a river of its own name. Before the opening of the railway between Panama and Aspinwall in 1855 it was a place of very considerable importance; but it has now sunk into a very decadent and dilapidated condition, and the inhabitants, who are mainly negroes or half-castes, only amount to about 1000. The period of its greatest prosperity coincides with the great emigration from the United States to the Californian gold-fields, and the district on the left side of the river is still known as the American town. The chief facts in its history are its destruction by the buccaneers in 1671 and its capture by the English under Admiral Vernon in 1740.