Panama Hats in Cuenca, Ecuador: Toquilla Straw Explained

Cuenca's hat shops use three different labels for the same kind of object. "Panama" is a trade nickname. "Toquilla" is the material and the craft UNESCO recognises. "Montecristi" is a legal denomination of origin tied to one place on the coast. Cuenca's own claim is different again: it became the country's great finishing and export centre.

Why are Panama hats made in Ecuador?

Because the palm and the weaving tradition are Ecuadorian, and the name came later. UNESCO's 2012 inscription describes a hat "woven from fibres from a palm tree characteristic of the Ecuadorian coast". Stems are harvested, the fibre is separated, boiled, dried and bleached, then woven, washed, moulded, ironed and pressed. Most weavers are farming families who pass the skill on at home.

On the coast the hat was first known as the sombrero jipijapa, after a Manabí town, according to the Instituto Nacional de Patrimonio Cultural's dossier on the craft. The INPC's 2012 article in its heritage journal explains the switch. Photographs from the building of the Panama Canal, showing workers and President Roosevelt of the United States in toquilla hats, travelled the world and led to the "errónea denominación" of Panama Hat.

The hats were also valuable long before the canal. The same INPC article states that in 1854 toquilla hat exports exceeded cacao, making them the product that earned the Ecuadorian state the most revenue that year.

How Cuenca became a hat city

The palm grows on the coast, so the craft had to be brought up to the Andes. INPC records that on 17 May 1844 Cuenca's city council ordered the first hat-making workshop and made toquilla weaving a compulsory subject. A 2020 study in the Journal of Tourism and Heritage Research adds that on 8 June 1844 the municipality contracted a master weaver. Nearby, the corregidor of Azogues, Bartolomé Serrano, brought in masters from Jipijapa and Montecristi. INPC notes he imposed the craft on reluctant residents, even jailing some who refused.

The result was a division of labour you can still trace. Weavers in rural parishes produced semi-finished hats and sold them to the "comisionistas de las grandes exportadoras", in INPC's words, while finishing and export concentrated in Cuenca. A 2020 study of Sígsig canton in the journal KOINONIA describes Cuenca as the city where the hats are mainly marketed and exported. It reports that 99% of Sígsig's output goes abroad, to Europe, the United States, Asia and Australia, and that weavers find the prices set by traders low. The Barzallo study dates the industry's sharp decline to after the 1970s.

Does "Montecristi" on a label mean it was made there?

It should, and that is exactly what the law protects. Ecuador's intellectual property office, SENADI, states that the Sombrero de Montecristi was declared a denomination of origin on 15 June 2009. Only producers inside Montecristi canton, in Manabí province, can apply to use it, and only within the production steps approved by the former IEPI.

A hat woven and finished in Azuay is a genuine toquilla hat, covered by the same UNESCO-listed craft, but it is not a Montecristi. Enforcement is still being built. On 1 July 2026 SENADI said it had received the technical and legal file to create a future origin regulatory office for the Montecristi hat. A February 2026 terms-of-reference document from the OEI's Ecuador office names misuse of the Montecristi name and label falsification as problems for artisans.

How is a toquilla hat graded?

The historical measure is a strand count. INPC's 2012 article explains that more strands in the same section means a higher grado: grade 0 has 10 strands per inch of weave, grade 1 has 11, grade 2 has 12, "y así sucesivamente". On that scale, a hat with 20 strands per inch would be grade 10.

Shops also use words such as fino and superfino and their own number systems. We did not find an official Ecuadorian standard that defines those labels, so two shops' "grade 10" may not mean the same thing. A strand count is something you can check yourself.

1. Lay a ruler or a card marked at one inch (2.54 cm) across the crown, parallel to the rows.
2. Count the strands crossing that inch, in good light.
3. Subtract 10 to place the hat on the INPC scale, and compare it with the grade the seller quotes.
4. Look at the rows as well: they should be even, without gaps or thick knots.

Fineness is also about time. UNESCO says weaving can take from one day to eight months, depending on quality and finesse. INPC's dossier gives four to six months for a fine hat in Manabí, where UNESCO singles out the community of Pile for extra-fine hats that need particular climatic conditions, according to the committee decision.

Where to see the craft in Cuenca

The Fundación Municipal Turismo para Cuenca lists three places in its guide to the city's hat makers. Hours below are as published there and on the municipal culture page.

The municipal museum opened on 14 November 2014 on the site of what the Cuenca culture directorate calls the first toquilla hat finishing factory. It runs social and solidarity economy projects, and the 2020 Barzallo study describes two shops where artisans sell directly. The municipal page does not list an entry fee.

The other two combine exhibits with retail. That is useful for seeing the finishing stages, but remember their grading words are their own. Prices are in US dollars; our guide to Ecuador's dollars and coins covers paying with large notes.

Before you pay, settle three things: what the label claims (toquilla, Cuenca, or Montecristi), what the strand count per inch actually is, and whether the seller can say where the hat was woven. If any answer is vague, you are buying on the seller's word, and the price should reflect that.