Miraflores locks, Panamá Canal

A trip to the visitor centre here, which is superb, showing the history of the Panamá Canal.

There's viewing platforms to watch the ships transiting the locks on the Pacific side. These ships are Panamax size to fit into the locks.

A new set of locks were built in 2016, one at the Caribbean side and one at the Pacific side. for Neo-Panamax sized ships, roughly one and a half times bigger.

When the canal was finally built by the Americans in 1904, part of the deal was that they would own the canal and a 5km strip of land either side. However after protests in 1977 by locals, there was a phased handover to the people of Panamá, finally getting full ownership on 31st December 1999. However, part of the deal is that the Panamanians would never have an army, the Americans would come in and protect it if need be.Read more