How Long Is The Panama Canal (And Why)?

How Long Is The Panama Canal (And Why)?

Exact Answer: Eighty Kilometres 

The Geography of the earth is very vast and very diverse. The creation of mother nature is so great that some things feel out of the world. There are many hills, mountains, rivers, and oceans that are extremely beautiful to look at. Just looking at these things can take one’s breath away.

Many people like to camp around a lake, go boating, or even take a swim in the ocean. Water bodies have something spectacular about them that even man has created a few water bodies or channels that look amazing while serving some purpose. The purpose could be entertainment or to help make electricity and more.

These creations include fountains, damns, and also canals.

How Long Is The Panama Canal

How Long Is The Panama Canal?

A Canal is one of the most inventive and worthwhile creations of man that serves many purposes. Canal are artificial waterways. Canals get created to carry water from one place to another. It forms a way for the water to flow across countries. A canal is known as an artificial river.

It is also called the Canal De Panama in Spanish. The Panama Canal is an artificial waterway that got made in Panama. Because of the complexity that the engineers faced while constructing this canal, it gets rightfully known as the most complex engineering project that got undertaken. 

The sole purpose due to which this canal got conceptualized was to make the maritime routes easy. The reason is that the earlier passage through Cap Horn was both lengthy and hazardous. After the Panama Canal got constructed, the travelers could avoid the route through the tip of southern America via the Drake Passage.

The Panama Canal connects the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific ocean while dividing North America and South America. The construction of this iconic canal began on 4th May 1904 and got completed on 15th August 1914. It took about a little over a decade to complete this monument.

The main brains behind this canal are John Findley Wallace, John Frank Stevens, and George Washington Goethals. The Panama Canal covers an area of about 51 miles that gets stretched for 82 Kilometers.

Length OfTotal Length
Length of the Canal82 Kilometers or 51 miles
Maximum Boat Length366 meters

Why Is The Panama Canal That Long?

To enhance international trade, people have tried to make the passage between two countries or two continents. It got done so that the trading could get done in an easier way. The Panam Canal is not the first one in the line and not the last one either.

Many canals got created in the past in different countries. The 18th and 19th centuries saw a lot of Canals getting constructed in various parts of the world. However, with the success of the Erie canal, people saw how beneficial it could be to build a Canal to make trade simple. Eventually, many saw an opportunity to build the Panama Canal so it could boost the trading options.

There are various reasons as to why the Panam Canal is so long, and they are as follows:

  • The primary reason behind Panama Canal getting constructed is to create a waterway between The two oceans. That is the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. Due to the construction of the Panama Canal, the travel between the two oceans got done in considerably less time.
  • Before the Panam Canal, travelers used to take the Cape Horn route that got known to be very Hazardous. So to make the journey for travelers safer, the Panama Canal was built in the year 1914.
  • To make it more comfortable for travelers, the Panama Canal got extended in the year 2016.

Conclusion

The construction of the Panam Canal has brought significant changes to the way trade happens between two countries. It has saved a lot of time and cost for the ships who embark on this Panama Canal. Ships that sail from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean can save about 8000 nautical miles.

Besides this, the ships that sail between the East Coast and the West Coast of America save about 3500 nautical miles. It has thus proved to be one of the most necessary and helpful constructions in history.

References

  1. https://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/TACEAT.0001580
  2. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0306312712440166
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