Although the Suez Canal in Egypt is the longest canal in the world, covering a distance of approximately 160 kilometers, the canal with the most traffic in the world and the only one that connects two oceans (the Atlantic and the Pacific) is the Panama Canal. In some years, more than 14,000 ships pass through this canal.
In 1881, a French company began building the canal in the Central American nation of Panama, but they gave up after eight years, when 20,000 workers died of malaria in that mosquito-infested region.
Then, in 1907, a U.S. company took over the job of building the canal (after fighting mosquitoes and malaria). Workers cleared the way through dense jungles and paved hills to build an artificial lake and huge locks to raise and lower the ships. 10 billion tons of earth were excavated before the canal was finished in 1914!
Strangely enough, a ship that travels from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean through the Panama Canal actually travels east. Because of Panama's curved shape, the Atlantic end of the canal is more than 40 kilometers west of the Pacific end.
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