Canals That Redrew the Map

Cut a short canal and you redraw the economics of continents. The Erie Canal collapsed the cost of moving Midwest grain and made New York the American port.

Suez removed thousands of kilometers from every Europe-Asia voyage and stranded the Cape coaling towns. Panama saved ships a deadly rounding of the Horn and shifted freight between US coasts from rail to water.

Canals also concentrate risk: one grounded ship in Suez or a drought in Panama slows world trade within days. Every canal is double edged, a huge gain for whoever builds it and a single point of failure for everyone who depends on it..