The Top 5 Panama Canal Facts

PTI has put together a list of the top five Panama Canal facts, based on past, present and future developments.

The canal is set to be completed in early 2016, and has already received a massive amount of support, having had around 45,000 people visit the ongoing expansion project in recent months.

Here is a list of the top facts:

1. At around 77km in length, a total journey through the canal can take around 15 hours, half of which is spent waiting in traffic.
2. If the original canal was built today it would cost approximately US$33 billion to complete, the expansion project has totalled over $5 billion.
3. It took a total of three attempts to finish the Panama Canal; the final attempt was overseen by then US President Theodore Roosevelt in 1904.
4. $9 trillion worth of trade travels through the canal each year, interlinking 1,700 ports in 160 countries.
5. Once the expansion is completed, the canal will have two new sets of locks, one on the Pacific side and the other on the Atlantic side, creating a new transit lane for accommodating 13,000 TEU post-Panamax vessels.