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Project ReportDedication
I would like to dedicate my project to my mom, because she encouraged me to study the Panama Canal.
Why I Chose This Topic
Ever since I heard my grandma and grandpa went through the canal, I've had a strong interest in it. That is why I decided to take this opportunity to study all about the Panama Canal.
Research Summary: The Panama Canal
Introduction: The Panama Canal is a man-made waterway through Central America. It makes travel by boat much easier and about 9,000 miles shorter, because captains do not have to go all the way around South America. The Panama Canal took 10 years to build (1904-1914) and was a huge achievement for humans.Canal: The canal is 40 miles long and 110 feet wide. In 1995 about 14,000 ships, 400,000 crew members and 300,000 passengers came through the canal. The most common ships to come through the canal are bulk carriers for ore, grain, and liquids, automobile carriers, container ships, refrigerated ships, tankers, liquid gas containers, and passenger liners. Naval vessels, fishing boats, barges, dredges, floating dry docks, and ocean-going tugs also use the canal. The only ships that can’t fit through the canal are U.S. supertankers. Ships come from Japan almost every day. In the future they are thinking about widening the canal. Each ship uses 52,000 gallons of water. To conserve water they have smaller ships go together.
History: People had dreamed of creating the canal for hundreds of years. In the 1830’s and 1840’s people studied how to attempt the canal. In 1850 the US built a railroad across Panama, about where the canal is today. In 1870 a French company started building the canal but, big problems like landslides, malaria, and yellow fever stopped them. In 1881 two thousand workers came to work on the canal. The people who worked on the canal lived in one story white cottages. They got paid by how much earth they moved that day.
Panama signed a treaty in 1903 to let America use the land. They planned to pay the French $40,000,000. In 1904 the US started work. When they were making the canal they used steam shovels to take away hills, swamps, and jungles. They worked on the canal for 10 years. There were two different diseases that killed or weakened many works making the canal. They were malaria and yellow fever. We spent over $350,000,000 to build the canal.
Ever since World War II the canal has been considered vulnerable to attack, because a single bomb or scuttled ship could disrupt canal traffic for a very long period of time. Lots of U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force bases were built in the Panama Canal Zone to defend it. The canal is important for U.S. Navy military reasons, to get quick access to both Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
We gave the canal to Panama on December 31,1999. In 1995 the tolls were at $460,000,000. The highest single toll was $141,345. About 13,500 ships come through each year, about 37 per day.
Panama: The country is sometimes called the Crossroads of the World because that the canal goes through Panama. The capital of Panama is Panama City. The official language is Spanish. Panama is 29,157 sq. mi. (75,517 sq. km). The estimated 2000 population is 2,856,000; 98 people per sq. mi. (38 per sq. km); distribution, 55 percent urban, 45 percent rural. Agriculture products include bananas, rice, sugar cane, beef cattle, milk, coffee, corn, chickens and eggs, beans. Manufacturing products include beverages, cement, petroleum products, processed foods. Fishing products, shrimp, and anchovetta. Panama is crossed with mountain ranges, covered by areas of rain forests, and bounded by two long coastlines studded with islands and bays. At a very low number of places its less than 100 miles long from the Pacific and Atlantic shores. The waterway played a decisive roll in its story. Almost all of its people live near the canal. Panama City is the capital, largest city, and is on the Pacific Coast in this central zone. The highest point in the country, the Barú volcano (3,475 m/11,401 ft) is located in the west range. Panama is geologically stable and experiences only moderate earthquake activity. None of its volcanoes are active. The Bocas region has historically been tied to the banana industry, but a banana disease that appeared in the 1930’s led the banana companies to move most operations elsewhere.
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