Panama hosts the Panama Canal, the waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
The canal crosses the Isthmus of Panama and uses a series of locks to raise ships to Gatun Lake before lowering them toward the opposite ocean. Its route avoids the much longer voyage around South America’s Cape Horn.
France began an unsuccessful canal project in the 1880s, but the United States completed the canal, which opened in 1914. The United States controlled the Canal Zone for decades before transferring full control to Panama on December 31, 1999.
The canal does not connect the Atlantic and Pacific at exactly the same latitude in the way a straight sea-level channel would. Ships pass through engineered locks and an artificial lake. The canal’s expanded locks opened in 2016 to accommodate larger vessels.