Panama Canal
The Panama Canal is a 77.1-kilometre ship canal in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. The canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. There are locks at each end to lift ships up to Gatun Lake, an artificial lake created to reduce the amount of excavation work required for the canal, 26 metres above sea level. The current locks are 33.5 metres wide. A third, wider lane of locks is currently under construction and is due to open in 2015.
France began work on the canal in 1881, but had to stop
because of engineering problems and high mortality due to disease. The United
States took over the project in 1904, and took a decade to complete the canal,
which was officially opened on August 15, 1914. One of the largest and most difficult
engineering projects ever undertaken, the Panama Canal shortcut greatly reduced
the time for ships to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, enabling
them to avoid the lengthy, hazardous Cape Horn route around the southernmost
tip of South America via the Drake Passage or Strait of Magellan. The shorter,
faster, and safer route to the U.S. West Coast and to nations in and around the
Pacific Ocean allowed those places to become more integrated with the world
economy. It takes between 20 and 30 hours to traverse the canal. The Panama
Canal will have its 100-year anniversary on August 14, 2014.
Annual traffic has risen from about 1,000 ships in 1914,
when the canal opened, to 14,702 vessels in 2008, the latter measuring a total
of 309.6 million Panama Canal/Universal Measurement System tons. By 2008, more than 815,000 vessels had
passed through the canal; the largest ships that can transit the canal today
are called Panamax. The American Society of Civil Engineers has named the
Panama Canal one of the seven wonders of the modern world.
