The Pan-American Highway is the longest road in the world

The Pan-American Highway is a grandiose landmark of the American continent. A unique motorway, the length of which exceeds the length of the equator, was built for several decades, beginning in 1925, when the First Conference of the Pan-American Highway in Buenos Aires decided to build.

The Greatest Road in the World

The project united 17 countries. It includes Canada and the United States in the northern part of the continent. Mexico, Colombia, Peru and other Latin American countries became participants in the construction of the southern segment. The total length of the Pan-American highway is about 48 thousand kilometers, it is the longest road in the world, included in the Guinness Book of Records.

The Pan-American highway connects North and South America, crosses six time zones and four climatic zones. Individual sections of the road become unfit for travel during the rainy season, so there is a special monitoring that regulates the movement in an extreme situation. In general, the Pan-American Highway is a unifying factor for the infrastructure of all states through which the highway passes.

Northern part

The entire territory of the US and Canada has a developed network of highways independent of the Pan-American Highway, but it is the main transport artery with a multitude of branches and peripheral routes connecting industrial regions. Several highways in different states of America bear the name Pan-American, including the Inter-American Highway, built during World War II, when there was a danger of attacking German submarines at port warehouses and effective ways for urgent transportation were needed.

From the border of Mexico and the United States originates the bulk of the Pan-American Highway. The road passes through the major Mexican cities of Monterrey, Oaxaca, Mexico City and many others. The route is laid in such a way that on its route there are the capitals of all the countries of Central America. Honduras became an exception: to its capital, the city of Tegucigalpa, the offshoot of the Pan-American highway approaches.

Darieni gap

On the border of Panama and Colombia there is a site that can not be crossed by an ordinary car. This is the so-called Darien gap with a length of 87 kilometers. The untouched jungle is protected by ecological prohibitions, near the nature reserves of Panama, for this reason the laying of the route became impossible. But even without this, the development of the site would be impossible because of the landscape features of the local nature. The jungle in some places is absolutely impassable, and there is virtually no land, only marshes. The road would fall off periodically.

To top it off, the US Congress actively objects to the construction of a road on this site, for fear of an uncontrolled flow of drugs from Colombia. Thus, the Darieni gap vehicles pass through a ferry connecting the Colombian city of Buenaventura with the port of Panama City. Of course, this is due to certain inconveniences, as drivers have to waste a lot of time waiting for the ferry, but there is no other solution to the problem so far.

Start

The Pan American Highway originates in the northern city of Fairbanks in Alaska and descends south to the city of Edmonton. This section of the 2230-km stretch is called Alaska Highway. Then the highway branches out and passes two separate highways across the US to rejoin the city of San Antonio, in the south of Texas. From this place the route goes further south, to the city of Panama City. After the ferry, the Pan-American Highway becomes a full-fledged highway for thousands of cars and passes through all of Colombia, the mountain valleys of the Andes Range and through the Cauca River valley. From the city of Bogota, the highway branches off and reaches Caracas.

Latin America

Then the Pan-American highway passes through the Ecuadorian plateau, passing the cities of Cuenca and Quito, Next the route runs along the Pacific coast to the capital of Peru, the city of Lima. After that, the highway again branched out, one branch leaves in the direction of the city of La Paz, the actual capital of Bolivia, the other branch continues to go to the south, to the city of Valparaiso in Chile. Then the highway turns left and leaves for Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, crossing the entire Latin American continent. From Buenos Aires, the highway continues to the southernmost point, the city of Ushuaia, located on the shores of the Strait of Magellan.

Tourism

In addition to strategic economic importance, there is one more function that the Pan-American Highway performs. Traveling along the longest road is associated with unforgettable impressions. For example, the highway passes along the most arid terrain of the planet Earth, the desert of Akatama. The main attraction of the desert is a giant human hand rising from the sand, symbolizing a perishing traveler, sinking in the sandy abyss. Sculpture in height of 11 meters was created by sculptor Mario Irarzarabal in 1992. Pan-American Highway, the description of which is not possible to do in one article, will present a lot of impressions to the traveler.