Why is the panama canal so small?

Question

Ships barely fit it.

In: 1

Answer 1

The new locks are a bit bigger and it’s important to remember while ships could be bigger if it was bigger there aren’t a lot of ports in the world that could support ships even bigger than what they already can be.

Also you may or may not be aware but ships barely fit it because ships are built with the canal in mind and to its dimensions. If they made the canal bigger ships would still ‘barely fit it’ as the ships would be bigger.