Canada, the United States, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, and Argentina are the 14 countries crossed by the Pan-American Highway, which connects Alaska with Argentine Patagonia.
This is the longest road in the world, a true feat of engineering that spans approximately 48,000 kilometers, thus uniting almost all the countries of the American continent along the Pacific coast.
The road is one of the most famous and iconic routes in the world and is divided into two sections: the northern and the southern, with varied landscapes and weather conditions. How long does this adventure take? It's a question with many variables, but it would be about 236 hours of non-stop driving.
Its construction
Construction of the Pan-American Highway began in the 1920s and continued for several more decades, with different sections and stretches being completed at different times.
There wasn't a single event that marked its completion, as it's more of a network of highways connecting different countries across North and South America. The idea of a highway connecting the entire American continent dates back to the early 20th century, but its construction and development were gradual.
A bit of history
According to the Argentine newspaper Infobae, its origins date back to Mexico, specifically to the 1930s. It was during the administration of General Lázaro Cárdenas that, after 10 years of work, the first section of what would later be called the Pan-American Highway was inaugurated. With an investment of 65 million pesos at the time, a highway was built that ran from the Rio Grande in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, to what is now Mexico City.
However, there was no evidence of this work until 2022 when the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) found two sections of the old road, during the reorganization work of the Modal Transfer Center (Cetram), in Indios Verdes, north of Mexico City.
The uncovered section measures approximately 40 meters in length; it is a paved area made of ballistic rock.
According to the archaeologist in charge of the excavation, Miguel Ángel Luna Muñoz, the road was built with ballistic stone and covered with black gravel, and then a 6-millimeter-thick asphalt layer was placed on top.
These road fragments are the only ones that remain of that complex project inaugurated on July 1, 1936, which officially marked the beginning of automotive traffic from the north of the country to the center of Mexico, said a statement from INAH.
The history of this highway dates back to 1923, with the Fifth International Conference of American States; however, it was between the 1940s and 1950s that its funding by the United States government began. Nevertheless, the first attempt to unify the continent was a railway project in 1880, which did not come to fruition.
Sources: Infobae and El Motor.
