Overview

By far the most impressive and well-known canals of the modern world are those in Panama and the Suez. The former, completed in 1903, connects the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, fulfilling a dream of several centuries. But the Suez Canal, which for the first time opened up the route between the Mediterranean and Red seas in 1869, represented the culmination of literally thousands of years' effort. Among the earliest canals were ones whereby builders in Egypt attempted to connect the Nile and the Red Sea; but these were far from the only major canal-building projects of the ancient and early medieval world. Indeed, the period before A.D. 700 saw the building of the world's longest canal in China, a waterway aptly known as the Grand Canal.

Background

Canals are manmade waterways built for irrigation, drainage...