Who built the panama canal at first?

Answer 1

No. A canal through Nicaragua was initially preferred by the US, but the Panama site was chosen after a French company acquired the rights to the canal from another bankrupted French company. An American representative of the French company, William Nelson Cromwell, persuaded the United States to take up the Panama route.

Answer 2

No, Panama was not the first choice to build a canal across Central America. Nicaragua was actually debated about first because of a lake in that region. Having the lake there could mean less land had to be moved.

Answer 3

No, actually Nicaragua was as the canal could have been built at sea level there and it would not have been necessary to use locks. But the route would have been much longer and the land harder to obtain.

The land for the canal in Panama was much easier to obtain: it was part of Columbia, but the people in what is now Panama did not like the Colombian government control, a little political intrigue and some "gunboat diplomacy" by the US triggered and supported a revolution allowing Panama to split from Columbia, the now small nation of Panama was easier to negotiate with for control of the land for the canal.

There were plans developed in the 1950s and early 1960s to excavate a sea level canal across Nicaragua very inexpensively with "clean" nuclear explosives. It would take roughly 50 nuclear explosive devices, which would all be detonated simultaneously, instantly producing a trench connecting the atlantic and the pacific deep enough and wide enough for the largest ships to use. Depending on how "clean" the nuclear explosives could be made it has been estimated that the wait for the fallout radioactivity to decay before the canal could be safely used by ships could be as little as several weeks to no more than a couple of years. In the 1960s this plan was abandoned, largely because of the Atmospheric Test Ban Treaty.

However Nicaragua is still seen as an ideal location for a canal, if access to the land can be negotiated and costs kept low enough.

Answer 4

The first actual canal attempt was by the French in 1880. There were proposals by the Spanish and Scottish for various methods of goods transfer and canals long before this, however.

Answer 5

The Soviet Union started the project in 1912

Answer 6

It was the most narrow part of land.

Answer 7

because the panamo was in war

Answer 8

usa