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 route around the southernmost tip of South America via the Drake Passage, the Strait of Magellan or the Beagle Channel.

France began work on the canal in 1881, but stopped in 1889 because of a lack of investors' confidence due to engineering problems and a high worker mortality rate.

[7] European powers soon noticed the possibility to dig a water passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans across this narrow land bridge between North and South America.

[9] The first attempt actually to make the isthmus part of a trade route was the ill-fated Darien scheme, launched by the Kingdom of Scotland (1698–1700), which was abandoned because of the inhospitable conditions.

[17] It commissioned several naval officers, including Commander Thomas Oliver Selfridge Jr., to investigate the possible routes suggested by Humboldt for a canal across Central America.

De Lesseps was able to gain approval of a majority of the delegates for his plan, despite reservations expressed by some who preferred a canal in Nicaragua or who emphasized the likely engineering difficulties and health risks.

The company bought the Wyse Concession from the Türr Syndicate, and was able to raise considerable funds from small French investors, on the basis of the huge profits generated by the Suez Canal.

[26] The dense jungle was alive with venomous snakes, insects, and spiders, but the worst challenges were yellow fever, malaria, and other tropical diseases, which killed thousands of workers; by 1884, the death rate was over 200 per month.

All these factors would result in the Colombians being unable to put down the Panamanian rebellion and expel the United States troops occupying what today is the independent nation of Panama.

[44] The US maneuvers are often cited as the classic example of US gunboat diplomacy in Latin America, and the best illustration of what Roosevelt meant by the old African adage, "Speak softly and carry a big stick [and] you will go far."

[47] The US formally took control of the canal property on 4 May 1904, inheriting from the French a depleted workforce and a vast jumble of buildings, infrastructure, and equipment, much of it in poor condition.

Overwhelmed by the disease-plagued country and forced to use often dilapidated French infrastructure and equipment,[49] as well as being frustrated by the overly bureaucratic ICC, Wallace resigned abruptly in June 1905.

[51] Stevens was not a member of the ICC; he increasingly viewed its bureaucracy as a serious hindrance, bypassing the commission and sending requests and demands directly to the Roosevelt administration in Washington, DC.

One of Stevens' first achievements in Panama was in building and rebuilding the housing, cafeterias, hotels, water systems, repair shops, warehouses, and other infrastructure needed by the thousands of incoming workers.

Gorgas implemented a range of measures to minimize the spread of deadly diseases, particularly yellow fever and malaria, which had recently been shown to be mosquito-borne following the work of Cuban epidemiologist Carlos Finlay, American pathologist Walter Reed and Scottish physician Sir Ronald Ross.

Unlike Godin de Lépinay with the Congrès International d'Etudes du Canal Interocéanique, Stevens successfully convinced Roosevelt of the necessity and feasibility of this alternative scheme.

These were joined by enormous steam-powered cranes, giant hydraulic rock crushers, concrete mixers, dredges, and pneumatic power drills, nearly all of which were manufactured by new, extensive machine-building technology developed and built in the United States.

[63] The Central Division, under Major David du Bose Gaillard of the United States Army Corps of Engineers, was assigned one of the most difficult parts: excavating the Culebra Cut through the continental divide to connect Gatun Lake to the Pacific Panama Canal locks.

[73] The burgeoning sheep farming business in southern Patagonia suffered a significant setback by the change in trade routes,[74] as did the economy of the Falkland Islands.

The treaty led to full Panamanian control effective at noon on 31 December 1999, and the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) assumed command of the waterway.

[82][83] Before this handover, the government of Panama held an international bid to negotiate a 25-year contract for operation of the container shipping ports located at the canal's Atlantic and Pacific outlets.

The contract was not affiliated with the ACP or Panama Canal operations and was won by the firm Hutchison Whampoa, a Hong Kong–based shipping interest owned by Li Ka-shing.

On the same day, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), made up of ten Central and South American countries, denounced Trump's comments and affirmed its support for Panama's "sovereignty, territorial integrity and self-determination.

[100] Download coordinates as: Created in 1913 by damming the Chagres River, the Gatun Lake is a key part of the Panama Canal, providing the millions of liters of water necessary to operate its locks each time a ship passes through.

On 1 April 2016, a more complicated toll system was introduced, having the neopanamax locks at a higher rate in some cases, natural gas transport as a new separate category and other changes.

The highest fee for priority passage charged through the Transit Slot Auction System was US$220,300, paid on 24 August 2006, by the Panamax tanker Erikoussa,[114] bypassing a 90-ship queue waiting for the end of maintenance work on the Gatun Locks, and thus avoiding a seven-day delay.

In 2006 it was anticipated that by 2011, 37 percent of the world's container ships would be too large for the present canal, and hence a failure to expand would result in a significant loss of market share.

[162][163][164][165] It was announced in July 2009 that the Belgian dredging company Jan De Nul, together with a consortium of contractors consisting of the Spanish Sacyr Vallehermoso, the Italian Impregilo, and the Panamanian company Grupo Cusa, had been awarded the contract to build the six new locks for US$3.1 billion, which was one billion less than the next highest competing bid due to having a concrete budget 71 percent smaller than that of the next bidder and allotted roughly 25 percent less for steel to reinforce that concrete.

[195][196] Individuals, companies, and governments have explored the possibility of constructing deep water ports and rail links connecting coasts as a "dry canal" in Guatemala, Costa Rica, and El Salvador/Honduras.

[198] One of the most recent was U.S. Federal Maritime Commissioner Louis Sola, who was awarded for his work for supporting seafarers during the COVID-19 pandemic and previously transiting the canal more than 100 times.