Why is the panama canal so small?

Question

Ships barely fit it.

In: 1

Answer 1

The Panama canal was built well over 100 years ago, and the engineering and effort required was unbelievably rigorous and taxing at the time. At the time of its construction, ships were far smaller and narrower than they are today. It just didn’t make any sense to expand far more time, effort, and other resources to build a wider canal at the time. In the same way, many old airports had to be greatly expanded when jets came on the scene, and even today, some airports need to build longer and longer runways to accommodate modern planes.