{"id":191,"date":"2026-03-24T12:19:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T06:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=191"},"modified":"2026-03-24T14:43:39","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T09:13:39","slug":"what-is-panama-canal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/what-is-panama-canal\/","title":{"rendered":"Panama Canal"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Panama Canal Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Panama Canal is operating at top capacity, as the Iran war triggers more LNG vessel traffic.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Panama Canal<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a <\/span><b>manmade waterway<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that connects the <\/span><b>Atlantic and Pacific oceans across the Isthmus of Panama.<\/b><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is one of the strategic artificial waterways in the world.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is <\/span><b>owned and administered by Panama,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and it is 40 miles long from shoreline to shoreline.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>History<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was <\/span><b>built by the United States<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and completed in August 1914,<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From its opening in 1914 until 1979, the Panama Canal was controlled solely by the United States.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 1979, control of the canal passed to the <\/span><b>Panama Canal Commission<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, a joint agency of the <\/span><b>United States and the Republic of Panama<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and complete control passed to Panama at noon on December 31, 1999.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><b>Functioning<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It <\/span><b>uses a system of locks and elevators<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to take ships from one end to the other.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is needed because the <\/span><b>two oceans that the Panama Canal connects do not lie<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> at the same elevation, with the <\/span><b>Pacific slightly higher than the Atlantic<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For a ship entering the canal through the Atlantic, it needs to gain elevation during its journey to the Pacific.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is <\/span><b>achieved using a lock system<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> which lifts and drops vessels to the required sea level at either end of the canal.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Basically, locks are either flooded (to gain elevation) or drained (to lose elevation), and act as water elevators.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source: <\/b><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/international\/panama-canal-at-top-capacity-as-iran-war-triggers-more-lng-vessel-traffic-chief-says\/article70767396.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">TH<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Panama Canal is a manmade waterway that connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans across the Isthmus of Panama. Read more about Panama Canal, History, Functioning, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":94578,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[25,21,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-191","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-panama-canal","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94621,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191\/revisions\/94621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}