What is the name of the canal that connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans?

The canal that connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans is the Panama Canal.

This 82-kilometre waterway crosses Panama’s narrow isthmus, linking the Caribbean Sea—an Atlantic marginal sea—with the Pacific Ocean. Ships do not travel through a simple sea-level trench: lock systems raise vessels to Gatun Lake and then lower them toward the opposite ocean. The design greatly shortens routes that would otherwise pass around South America.

The United States completed the canal in 1914 after an earlier French effort failed amid engineering difficulties, disease, and financial problems. The canal became a major strategic and commercial route, especially for vessels moving between the eastern United States and the Pacific coast, as well as between Atlantic and Pacific trading regions.

A common mix-up is the Suez Canal, which connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea and therefore links the Atlantic and Indian Ocean systems. The Panama Canal’s expansion opened in 2016, adding wider locks for Neopanamax ships. Its operation depends heavily on freshwater reserves, because each lock transit uses water from the canal’s watershed.