Royal Veragua was a territory of the Crown of Castile

Crown of Castile

The Crown of Castile was a medieval and modern state in the Iberian Peninsula that formed in 1230 as a result of the third and definitive union of the crowns and parliaments of the kingdoms of Castile and León upon the accession of the then King Ferdinand III of Castile to the vacant Leonese throne...

 in the early colonial period in the New World. It included the Caribbean slopes from the Río Sixaola (the present boundary with Costa Rica

Costa Rica

Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....

) to the island Escudo de Veraguas, in what is now Panama

Panama

Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...

. Beyond the later point, the Duchy of Veragua

Duchy of Veragua

The Duchy of Veragua was a Spanish hereditary domain created in 1537 in the reign of King Charles I in a small section of the territory of Veragua...

, erected in 1537 for the heirs of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...

, began.

Both territories had earlier formed part of the Gobernación de Veragua, or Veragua colombina (Colombian Veragua). At the conclusion of the long-running lawsuits between Columbus and his heirs and the Crown of Castille, the Duchy of Veragua was created (1537), with Columbus's grandson Admiral Luis Colón y Toledo as the first duke. The remaining territory of the Gobernación, extending along the Caribbean coast from Escudo de Veraguas to Cabo Gracias a Dios

Cabo Gracias a Dios

Cabo Gracias a Dios is a cape located in the middle of the east coast of Central America, within what is variously called the Mosquito Coast and La Mosquitia...

 remained under royal jurisdiction and was renamed Royal Veragua. (Columbus's heirs had claimed the entire territory.)

Royal Veragua had an ephemeral existence. In 1540 it was combined with other territories on the Pacific slope belonging to Castilla de Oro

Castilla de Oro

Castilla de Oro was the name given by the Spanish settlers at the beginning of the 16th century to the Central American territories from the Gulf of Urabá, near today's Colombian-Panamanian border, to the Belén River. Beyond that river, the region was known as Veragua, and was disputed by the...

 to create the Province of Nuevo Cartago y Costa Rica

Nuevo Cartago y Costa Rica

Nuevo Cartago y Costa Rica was a province of the Kingdom of Guatemala, created in 1540 during the reign of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor . It was formed from two earlier Spanish territories...

.

A province of the Republic of Panama is named Veraguas.