Tag Archives: Darien Gap

The Inter-American Highway

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The Inter-American Highway is the common name for the section of the Pan-American Highway that runs from Nuevo Laredo in Mexico (close to the border with the US) to Panama City in Panama. For Panamanians, it provides the link to other Central American countries, and beyond, through the Pan-American highway to the USA and Canada. With the Panama Canal, the highway helped contribute to Panama’s position as a crossroads for world trade – though, with the Darien Gap creating a barrier to direct transport links to South America, it is technically a ‘T’ junction, not a crossroads.

There had long been a desire to link the Panama Canal and its associated port facilities with other countries, for the Americans who the operated the Canal, it would reduce the risk of alternative canal proposals being built, by allowing neighboring countries to benefit from its trade links. It would also provide an alternative link to the US Canal Zone, as an alternative to sea crossings.

In 1923, with the agreement of many Central American countries, the US began a project to use their new photo-reconnaissance aircraft to conduct aerial surveys and mapping of the Central American republics. This laid the foundations for a new road, allowing engineers to plan routes and estimate bridging and tunnelling costs. However, it was World War II which spurred construction. Aware of the risks to their supply lines between the USA and the Canal Zone presented by German U-boats, construction of an overland link became a prudent precaution.

As with the final Panama Canal project, construction was led by US engineers and administrators. Many sections of the road that would become part of the Inter-American Highway had been built by individual countries independently before 1940. However, these roads linked specific cities only and were of variable quality. Progress on construction was slow, with multiple obstacles to be overcome and often very remote construction sites. Nevertheless, construction progressed rapidly, though not quickly enough to see the road finished before World War II ended in 1945.

In 1946, a route was ready for inspection by U.S. diplomats and engineers, but it was far from being the finished article, and much was only passable by four-wheel drive or tracked vehicles. It would take until 1967 until the road was completed, and even today, there is no connection beyond Panama, presenting a huge barrier to trade and prosperity in the region.

The Pan-American Highway

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The Pan-American Highway (Rodovia/Auto-estrada Pan-americana in Portugese and Carretera (or Autopista) Panamericana in Spanish) is a road network almost 50,000 kilometers in total length that links all the nations on the mainland of the Americas. With the notable and embarrassing 87 kilometer gap in the network at Darien, between Panama and Colombia, the road either passes through, or connects to every country on both continents.

The Pan-American Highway system extends from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, in North America to the the south of Chile. Several southern end-points are claimed for the highway, including the cities of Puerto Montt and Quellón in Chile and Ushuaia in Argentina. In the USA and Canada with comprehensive road networks, there are no routes officially designated as being part of the highway, and there are multiple different ways to get from the Mexican border to the Canadian/Alaskan border in the north.

The Pan-American Highway passes through the entire diversity of geography and climate on the continents, from the frozen tundra of Alaska through mountains and deserts. Passing through may different countries, the standard of the road does vary, and some stretches are only passable in the dry season.

The concept of a route from one tip of the Americas to the other was originally proposed at the First Pan-American Conference in 1889, initially as a railway, However, this proposal never materialized. The idea of a Pan-American Highway was discussed at the Fifth International Conference of American States in 1923, where it was originally conceived as a single route. Two years later, on October 5th 1925, the first Pan-American Highway conference convened in Buenos Aires.

Three years later, on April 16th, 1928, the “Expedição Brasileira da Estrada Panamericana” began. This Brazilian expedition set out to prove the concept of linking the Americas by road. The team of 3, driving two Ford Model T cars set off for New York with a mission to map and, subsequently, plot a route for a highway that would link the three Americas. It took 10 years to complete the mission, and during that time, they covered 28,000 km and passed through fifteen countries. Having shown that is was possible; construction began, although at very different speeds in individual countries. Mexico Became the first Latin American country to complete its portion of the highway, in 1950, Panama still has not completed its section, resulting in the notorious ‘Darien Gap’.