Which canal, opened in 1869, carries shipping between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea?
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It runs roughly 193 kilometres across the isthmus between Port Said and the Gulf of Suez, and because both ends sit at about the same level it needs no locks at all.
Which canal cut across Central America joins the Atlantic and Pacific oceans?
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Ships cross the isthmus in roughly eight to ten hours, climbing a flight of locks at one end and descending another at the other.
The Channel Tunnel runs beneath which stretch of water?
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Its three bores run through the chalk marl under the narrowest part of the English Channel, between Folkestone in Kent and Coquelles near Calais.
What is a lock on a canal built to do?
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A boat enters a chamber, the gates are shut and water is let in or out, so the boat rises or falls with the water level and leaves at the height of the next stretch.
Which country’s Grand Canal is the longest artificial waterway still in use?
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It links the Yellow River and Yangtze basins over some 1,800 kilometres, and sections of it have been dug, abandoned and re-dug since well before the common era.
Which two seas does the Kiel Canal in northern Germany join?
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The cut runs about 98 kilometres across the neck of the Jutland peninsula, saving shipping the long passage round the top of Denmark.
The Corinth Canal cuts through a narrow isthmus in which country?
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It separates the Peloponnese from the Greek mainland, running about six kilometres through rock with near-vertical sides rising more than 70 metres above the water.
What was a canal towpath traditionally used for?
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One horse on a level towpath could move a load many times what it could pull on a road, which was the whole commercial point of a still-water navigation.
Which American canal, opened in 1825, connected the Hudson River to Lake Erie?
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It ran 584 kilometres across New York State with 83 locks, and it turned the port at the mouth of the Hudson into the gateway for the whole Great Lakes interior.
Which machine cuts a circular tunnel and fits its lining as it advances?
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A rotating cutterhead grinds the face while erectors place pre-cast concrete segments behind it, so the machine is at once a cutter, a conveyor and a bricklayer.
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