Panama Canal

Gates of the Gatun locks open for a cruise ship making its way down to the Caribbean end of the canal. The gates at both ends of the upper chamber are doubled for safety.

The history of the Panama Canal goes back almost to the earliest explorers of the Americas. The narrow land bridge between North and South America offers a unique opportunity to create a water passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The earliest European colonists of Central America recognized this potential, and schemes for such a canal were floated several times in the subsequent years.

By the late 19th century, technological advances and commercial pressure advanced to the point where construction started in earnest. An initial attempt by France to build a sea-level canal failed, but only after a great amount of excavation was carried out. This was of use to the United States, which completed the present Panama Canal in 1913 and officially opened it in 1914. Along the way, the state of Panama was created through its separation from Colombia in 1903.

Today, the canal continues to be not only a viable commercial venture, but also a vital link in world shipping.

The canal has three sets of locks. A two-step flight at Miraflores, and a single flight at Pedro Miguel, lift ships from the Pacific up to Gatun Lake; then a triple flight at Gatun lowers them to the Atlantic side. All three sets of locks are paired; that is, there are two parallel flights of locks at each of the three lock sites. This, in principle, allows ships to pass in opposite directions simultaneously; however, large ships cannot cross safely at speed in the Culebra Cut, so in practice ships pass in one direction for a time, then in the other, using both "lanes" of the locks in one direction at a time.


24 hour time-lapse of the upper chamber of the Miraflores Locks