A ship sails through the Panama Canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific. How many kilometres long is the passage?
Try it yourself first
🚆 Transport · km
Enter an estimate in km.
Notepad
End a line with = to calculate it.
Show the answer and the method
Answer
About 82 km
Because of the way the isthmus bends, a ship heading from the Atlantic to the Pacific actually exits the canal further east than where it entered.
How to estimate it
A canal's length is a surveyed fact, but two checks help. On a map the isthmus of Panama is about 60 km wide at its narrowest, and the canal crosses at an angle with dredged approaches at both ends, so it must be longer. Also, a transit takes about 10 hours at an average of 8 km/h, locks included: 10 × 8 = 80 km. The real length is about 82 km.
Source: Panama Canal Authority
More questions: Transport
- The Airbus A380 is the largest passenger aircraft ever built. With its tanks brimmed, how many litres of fuel does it carry?
- The largest container ships now afloat are about 400 metres long. How many standard 20-foot containers (TEU) can one of them carry?
- Concorde carried passengers across the Atlantic at about twice the speed of sound. What was its cruising speed in kilometres per hour?
- Switzerland's Gotthard Base Tunnel, opened in 2016, is the longest railway tunnel in the world. How many kilometres long is it?
- The Saturn V rocket that sent astronauts to the Moon was lifted by five F-1 engines. How much thrust did they produce together at liftoff, in newtons?