Spread over the west bank of the Panama Canal, on the Atlantic coast, the San Lorenzo Protected Area includes 9,653 hectares (about 23,852 acres) of forests, mangroves and pastures, as well as 20 km (12 miles) of coastline. It is an important part of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, and it is the northenmost part of the north-south biological corridor between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Although the area gets twice as much rain as the Pacific coast of Panama, there are more hours of sunshine per day in this zone on all months of the year, except for January and February.

Fort San Lorenzo a fort from Spanish colonial times built in 1597 near at the mouth of the Chagres River, sits on the north of the Protected Area. Together with the fortifications of Portobelo, the Fort San Lorenzo was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1981, and was included in the World Monuments Fund list of Endangered Monuments for 1997-1998.

From 1953 to 1999 the entire area was used for jungle training by the US Defense Department. Fort Sherman was where the US Southern Command Jungle Operations Training Batallion was located.

Tourist attractions in the Protected Area include the Fort San Lorenzo, the Achiote Road and other birdwatching trails, the French Canal, kayaking on the Chagres River and the Canal coastal defense batteries, built during the First World War, as well as the Panama Canal locks and the Gatun dam.

To the west and south of the Protected Area live several rural communities, where numbering about four thousand people live along the banks of the Gatun Lake and on the road to the Costa Abajo of Colon. These communities are dedicated mainly to coffee farming, cattle raising and subsistence agriculture.