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The Panama Canal (Spanish: Canal de Panamá) is an artificial 82 km (51 mi) waterway in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean and divides North and South America. The canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and is a conduit for maritime trade. One of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken, the Panama Canal shortcut greatly reduces 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 and the even less popular route through the Arctic Archipelago and the Bering Strait. Colombia, France, and later the United States controlled the territory surrounding the canal during construction. France began work on the canal in 1881, but stopped because of lack of investors' confidence due to engineering problems and a high worker mortality rate. The United States took over the project on May 4, 1904, and opened the canal on August 15, 1914. The US continued to control the canal and surrounding Panama Canal Zone until the 1977 Torrijos–Carter Treaties provided for handover to Panama. After a period of joint American–Panamanian control, the canal was taken over by the Panamanian government in 1999. It is now managed and operated by the government-owned Panama Canal Authority.

Canal locks at each end lift ships up to Gatun Lake, an artificial lake created to reduce the amount of excavation work required for the canal, 26 meters (85 ft) above sea level, and then lower the ships at the other end. The original locks are 33.5 meters (110 ft) wide. A third, wider lane of locks was constructed between September 2007 and May 2016. The expanded waterway began commercial operation on June 26, 2016. The new locks allow transit of larger, New Panamax ships.[1]

Annual traffic has risen from about 1,000 ships in 1914, when the canal opened, to 14,702 vessels in 2008, for a total of 333.7 million Panama Canal/Universal Measurement System (PC/UMS) tons. By 2012, more than 815,000 vessels had passed through the canal.[2] In 2017 it took ships an average of 11.38 hours to pass between the canal's two locks.[3] The American Society of Civil Engineers has ranked the Panama Canal one of the seven wonders of the modern world.[4]
Early proposals in Panama

Satellite image showing the location of Panama Canal: Dense jungles are visible in green.
The earliest record regarding a canal across the Isthmus of Panama was in 1534, when Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, ordered a survey for a route through the Americas in order to ease the voyage for ships traveling between Spain and Peru. The Spanish were seeking to gain a military advantage over the Portuguese.[5]

In 1668, the English physician and philosopher Sir Thomas Browne speculated in his encyclopedic work, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, that "some Isthmus have been eaten through by the Sea, and others cut by the spade: And if the policy would permit, that of Panama in America were most worthy the attempt: it being but few miles over, and would open a shorter cut unto the East Indies and China".[6]

In 1788, American Thomas Jefferson, then Minister to France, suggested that the Spanish should build the canal, since they controlled the colonies where it would be built. He said that this would be a less treacherous route for ships than going around the southern tip of South America, and that tropical ocean currents would naturally widen the canal after construction.[7] During an expedition from 1788 to 1793, Alessandro Malaspina outlined plans for construction of a canal.[8] Given the strategic location of Panama, and the potential of its narrow isthmus separating two great oceans, other trade links in the area were attempted over the years. The ill-fated Darien scheme was launched by the Kingdom of Scotland in 1698 to set up an overland trade route. Generally inhospitable conditions thwarted the effort, and it was abandoned in April 1700.[9]

Numerous canals were built in other countries in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The success of the Erie Canal through central New York in the United States in the 1820s, and the collapse of the Spanish Empire in Latin America resulted in growing American interest in building an inter-oceanic canal. Beginning in 1826, US officials began negotiations with Gran Colombia (present-day Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Panama), hoping to gain a concession to build a canal. Jealous of their newly gained independence and fearing domination by the more powerful United States, president Simón Bolívar and New Granada officials declined American offers. After the collapse of Gran Colombia, New Granada remained unstable under constant government intrigue.[citation needed]

Great Britain attempted to develop a canal in 1843. According to the New-York Daily Tribune, August 24, 1843, Barings of London and the Republic of New Granada entered into a contract for the construction of a canal across the Isthmus of Darien (Isthmus of Panama). They referred to it as the Atlantic and Pacific Canal, and it was a wholly British endeavor. Projected for completion in five years, the plan was never carried out. At nearly the same time, other ideas were floated, including a canal (and/or a railroad) across Mexico's Isthmus of Tehuantepec. That did not develop, either.[10]

In 1846, the Mallarino–Bidlack Treaty, negotiated between the US and New Granada, granted the United States transit rights and the right to intervene militarily in the isthmus. In 1848, the discovery of gold in California, on the West Coast of the United States, generated renewed interest in a canal crossing between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. William H. Aspinwall, who had won the federal subsidy to build and operate the Pacific mail steamships at around the same time, benefited from the gold discovery. Aspinwall's route included steamship legs from New York City to Panama, and from Panama to California, with an overland portage through Panama. This route with an overland leg in Panama was soon frequently traveled, as it provided one of the fastest connections between San Francisco, California, and the East Coast cities, about 40 days' transit in total. Nearly all the gold that was shipped out of California went by the fast Panama route. Several new and larger paddle steamers were soon plying this new route, including private steamship lines owned by American entrepreneur Cornelius Vanderbilt that made use of an overland route through Nicaragua, and the unfortunate SS Central America.[11][page needed]

In 1850 the United States began construction of the Panama Railroad (now called the Panama Railway) to cross the isthmus; it opened in 1855. This overland link became a vital piece of Western Hemisphere infrastructure, greatly facilitating trade. The later canal route was constructed parallel to it, as it had helped clear dense forests.[citation needed] An all-water route between the oceans was still the goal. In 1855 William Kennish, a Manx-born engineer working for the United States government, surveyed the isthmus and issued a report on a route for a proposed Panama Canal.[12] His report was published as a book entitled The Practicability and Importance of a Ship Canal to Connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.[13][page needed]

In 1876, Lucien Napoléon Bonaparte Wyse and his chief assistant Armand Réclus, both officers and engineers of the French Navy, explored several routes in the Darien-Atrato regions, and made proposals including the construction of tunnels and locks.[14][page needed] A second Isthmian exploratory visit began on December 6, 1877, where two routes were explored in Panama, the San Blas route and a route from Limon Bay to Panama City, the current Canal route. The French had achieved success in building the Suez Canal in the Middle East. While it was a lengthy project, they were encouraged to plan for a canal to cross the Panamanian isthmus.[15] Wyse went to Bogota and on March 20, 1878, signed a treaty, in the name of the Société Civile Internationale du Canal Interocéanique par l'isthme du Darien headed by general Étienne Türr, with the Colombian government, known as the Wyse concession, to build an interoceanic canal through Panama.