About Panama Canal
The Panama Canal is one of the world's great engineering marvels, providing an 82-kilometre thoroughfare for thousands of cargo vessels transporting goods all over the world every year. With a history dating back centuries, from failed attempts to build a canal by the Spanish in the 16th century to the eventual construction and handing over of ownership by the USA in the 21st century, the canal and its 18 locks that lift ships up over 25 metres above sea level, are both engineering and historically fascinating.
Work on the Panama Canal started in 1882, led by Frenchman Ferdinand de Lesseps, who had been in charge of the construction of the Suez Canal, completed in 1869. However, the project proved much more difficult than expected, and by the time it was abandoned in 1889, 22,000 workers had died, largely from malaria and yellow fever. The canal was not even half completed, and the company established to build the canal was virtually bankrupt. A new French company was established in 1894 to take charge of the assets. Following the separation of Panama from Colombia in 1903, the US government negotiated a treaty with the Panamanian government to complete the project.
Work started in 1904, and a key element of its success was the sanitation project, which resulted in the virtual elimination of malaria and yellow fever through the removal of standing water in the cities and the drainage of swamps and wetlands. The US project also decided on a lock-based canal, unlike the initial sea-level canal proposed by the French company, and consisted of immense locks and dams as well as cutting through the continental divide. The canal was inaugurated on 15 August 1914. The canal, and the 10-mile wide canal zone, was administered by the US government throughout the 20th century until its handover to Panama on 31 December 1999. An expansion of the canal, involving the construction of new locks, to allow larger ships to pass through and increasing its capacity, was completed in 2016.