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50 free The Panama Canal trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Panama Canal trivia runs from Balboa's crossing of 1513 to the Neopanamax locks of 2016. The quiz begins with the basics: how long the canal is, where it goes, when it opened, which lake it climbs to and how wide the original locks are. Then the French disaster: de Lesseps fresh from Suez, the sea-level dream, 22,000 dead, bankruptcy and a jail sentence. The American takeover follows: the Nicaragua debate, the $40 million deal, Panama's independence from Colombia, Bunau-Varilla's treaty and Roosevelt's 'I took the Isthmus'. The construction section covers Gorgas and the mosquitoes, Wallace, Stevens and Goethals, the Barbadian labourers, Bucyrus steam shovels, the Culebra Cut and its landslides, the Chagres dam and Gatun Lake, the Cristobal and the Ancon. Later questions turn to operations and politics: Panamax and the Bridge of the Americas, Miraflores, the Saratoga's lamp posts, Halliburton's 36-cent swim, the Norwegian Pearl's record toll, 200 million litres per transit, the Canal Zone and its capital, Torrijos and Carter, noon on 31 December 1999, the expansion, the Nicaraguan rival that vanished and the treaties of 1846 and 1850. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the Panama Canal, Gatun Lake, the Culebra Cut and the Canal Zone, with the supporting sentence attached to each question. Easy questions suit anyone; the expert tier reaches Baron de Lépinay and the San Juan Prospector.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How long is the Panama Canal?
82 km (51 miles)
It cuts across the narrowest point of the Isthmus of Panama, linking the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific.
Q 02On what date was the Panama Canal formally opened?
15 August 1914
The cargo ship SS Ancon made the opening passage, two years ahead of the target date.
Q 03How high above sea level is the artificial lake that the canal's locks lift ships up to?
26 metres (85 ft)
Gatun Lake was created by damming a river to cut down excavation, and was the largest artificial lake in the world when built.
Q 04Which country began digging the canal in 1881 and gave up in 1889?
France
Engineering problems and a horrific death rate destroyed investor confidence; the US took over in 1904.
Q 05Which French diplomat, fresh from building the Suez Canal, led the failed French effort in Panama?
Ferdinand de Lesseps
He insisted on a sea-level canal like Suez, dismissing Baron de Lépinay's lock-and-lake plan that the Americans later adopted.
Q 06Roughly how many workers died during the French construction attempt of 1881–1889?
Over 22,000
By 1884 the death rate was over 200 a month, mostly from yellow fever and malaria; the savings of 800,000 French investors were lost.
Q 07What happened to the leader of the French project and his son Charles after the company went bankrupt?
They were convicted of misappropriating funds
Both were sentenced to five years' imprisonment.
Q 08What did the US pay the French Compagnie Nouvelle in 1904 for its equipment, excavations and the Panama Railroad?
$40 million
Bunau-Varilla had cut the asking price from $109 million to $40 million during an emergency shareholders' meeting.
Q 09Which alternative country did a US commission initially recommend for the canal on price grounds in 1901?
Nicaragua
The British had tried a Nicaraguan canal in 1843; the route would cross Lake Nicaragua.
Q 10From which country did Panama declare independence on 3 November 1903, with US warships blocking a response?
Colombia
Colombia's senate had unanimously rejected the Hay–Herrán Treaty; Roosevelt later said 'I took the Isthmus'.
Q 11Who signed the November 1903 treaty granting the US the Canal Zone, acting as Panama's ambassador?
Philippe Bunau-Varilla, a Frenchman
He was a former engineer of the French company acting as Panama's ambassador; the treaty became a lasting grievance.
Q 12Which US president championed the Panama route and famously said he 'took the Isthmus'?
Theodore Roosevelt
The New York Times called US support for Bunau-Varilla an 'act of sordid conquest'.
Q 13What did the US agree to pay under the 1921 Thomson–Urrutia Treaty to win recognition of Panama from its former ruler?
$25 million
Q 21Which Milwaukee company made most of the railroad-mounted steam shovels used to dig the canal?
Bucyrus
77 came from Bucyrus-Erie and 25 from Marion; some were later sold to the Chuquicamata copper mine in Chile.
Q 22What was the first ship to transit the canal from ocean to ocean, twelve days before the formal opening?
SS Cristobal
The floating crane Alexandre La Valley had been the first self-propelled vessel to cross; the Ancon made the formal opening trip.
Q 23Which pair of leaders signed the 1977 treaties that provided for handing the canal to Panama?
Jimmy Carter and Omar Torrijos
It was paid as $5 million on ratification plus four annual $5 million instalments.
Q 14Which chief sanitation officer's mosquito-control campaign against yellow fever and malaria made US construction possible?
William Gorgas
One commissioner called his ideas 'barmy'; chief engineer Stevens backed him and the diseases were beaten.
Q 15Which self-educated railroad engineer, builder of the Great Northern, was chief engineer from 1905 to 1907?
John Frank Stevens
He rebuilt housing and the railway, backed Gorgas, and told Washington a sea-level canal was 'an entirely untenable proposition'.
Q 16Which US Army officer replaced Stevens in 1907 and drove the canal to completion?
George Washington Goethals
He split the work into Atlantic, Central and Pacific divisions and finished two years ahead of the 1916 target.
Q 17About how many workers died during the US construction phase, 1904–1914?
5,600
The great majority were West Indian labourers, especially Barbadians; about 350 Americans died.
Q 18Which West Indian island supplied the largest share of the labourers who died building the canal under the Americans?
Barbados
Caribbean workers, called Afro-Panamanians, came in large numbers and many settled permanently.
Q 19What is the name of the artificial valley through the continental divide, the hardest part of the excavation?
Culebra Cut
It was called Gaillard Cut from 1915 to 2000 after the major who led the digging; landslides plagued it for decades.
Q 20After whom was the canal's great cut through the continental divide named from 1915 until 2000?
Major David du Bose Gaillard
The name reverted to Culebra after the canal was handed to Panama.
Full Panamanian control took effect at the end of 1999.
Q 24At what moment did Panama take full control of the canal?
Noon on 31 December 1999
The Panama Canal Authority (ACP) took command; the Canal Zone itself had been abolished two decades earlier.
Q 25How wide were the original locks, setting the 'Panamax' size limit?
110 feet
Each lock chamber is 1,050 feet long; the ship's height was limited by a bridge at the Pacific end.
Q 26When did the expanded canal with its third, wider lane of Neopanamax locks begin commercial operation?
26 June 2016
Construction ran from September 2007 to May 2016; the new locks are Agua Clara on the Atlantic and Cocolí on the Pacific.
Q 27What are the two-stage locks nearest the Pacific entrance called?
Miraflores
Panamax ships descend first through the single-stage Pedro Miguel Lock, cross Miraflores Lake, then drop through Miraflores to the Pacific harbour.
Q 28Who paid the lowest toll in the canal's history, 36 cents, in 1928?
Richard Halliburton, who swam it
The most expensive regular toll, $375,600, was paid by a cruise ship in 2010.
Q 29Which cruise ship set a then-record regular toll of $375,600 in April 2010?
Norwegian Pearl
A tanker once paid $220,300 at auction just to jump a 90-ship queue in 2006; the expanded locks have since brought far larger tolls.
Q 30Roughly how much fresh water is used in a single ship's passage through the canal?
200 million litres
Gatun Lake is filled by rain, so droughts threaten the canal's operation.