Chagres River

The Chagres River (Spanish: Río Chagres) is a river in central Panama. The southwest part of the river in dammed and forms Lake Gatún, an artificial lake that constitutes part of the Panama Canal.The dam is 1.5 miles long and slightly under 0.5 mile wide at its base. The construction of the dam involved building 2 walls along its length, using excavated rock, primarily from the Culebra Cut. The space between the walls was then built up with clay. When the clay dried it adopted concrete qualities. This dam contains 16.9 million cubic metres of rock and clay which is equivalent to about one tenth of the entire excavation of the canal. To the northwest it drains northwest into the Caribbean Sea.

Related Topics:
Spanish - River - Panama - Dam - Lake Gatún - Artificial lake - Panama Canal - Culebra Cut - Caribbean Sea

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The river was the correct answer to the winning question of the 2005 National Geographic Bee.

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