Panama Canal

The 82 kilometer lock canal opened in 1914 that joined the Atlantic and Pacific and rewrote world shipping distances.

Overview

The French attempt of 1881 to 1889 collapsed under disease and design errors. The American project succeeded after 1904 because sanitarians led by William Gorgas suppressed yellow fever and malaria and the design shifted to locks lifting ships 26 meters to Gatun Lake. The 1977 treaties handed the canal to Panama by 1999, and a 2015 expansion added larger neo-Panamax lanes that doubled ship capacity. Roughly five percent of world trade transits, with US East Coast imports especially dependent. Gatun Lake droughts now restrict transits in dry years, and the biggest ships pay tolls in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.