The Panama Canal is the link to travel from the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the country Panama. Because of Panama's land mass narrowness, it was easier to construct a canal. The canal is approximately 50 miles long and has three locks and dams. This allows ships to either travel from Port of Balboa on the Pacific side to Port of Cristobal on the Atlantic side. It can take each ship approximately 24 hours to travel through the canal. Over 800,000 ships in the last century have traveled through the canal and roughly 40 ships each day. To travel through the canal, a ship has to pay by weight. This can get extremely expensive and can be thousands of dollars. The highest toll stands at $165,235. Although, it may be expensive to travel through the canal, it is definitely worth the money because it saves time and fuel. It would cost even more money and more time to travel around all of South America (Central America). Despite the size of the Panama Canal, supertankers which are larger ships, cannot travel through the Canal. The largest ships that have a difficult time fitting and barely making it through the canal are the Panamax ships. When these ships travel through, there are only two feet of space on both sides of the locks. The history, design, and the construction of the Panama Canal has and will continue to leave a life-long impact on the world. Whether it is the United States, European countries, the military, everyone is impacted by such an innovation the world was given.