Transcontinental Railways, Sea Routes and Ports: World GK

Goods and people move between continents along a small number of fixed corridors: a handful of railway lines that cross whole landmasses, a handful of ocean highways that ships keep to because they are the shortest or the safest, and the canals and ports that join the two. This chapter is almost pure static general knowledge, which is why it appears so often in objective papers. The questions are nearly always of the same kind, asking which railway is the longest, which two seas a canal joins, which route is the busiest, or what a particular class of port is called, so the facts below are worth learning as pairs.

Transcontinental railways

A transcontinental railway runs across a continent and links two oceans or two ends of a landmass. They were built to open interiors to settlement, to carry minerals and grain to the coast, and in several cases to hold a large country politically together.

The great ocean routes

Ships do not wander; they follow lanes fixed by distance, depth, currents and the position of fuelling ports. Five or six of these carry most of the world's seaborne trade.

• Northern Atlantic Sea Route: links the north-eastern coast of North America with western Europe. It is the busiest ocean route in the world and is called the Big Trunk Route, because the two most industrialised regions on earth face each other across it.
• Mediterranean and Indian Ocean Route: runs from western Europe through the Strait of Gibraltar, the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal and the Red Sea to the ports of Asia, East Africa and Australia. It is the route that carries most of the trade between Europe and Asia.
• Cape of Good Hope Route: the older way round Africa to Asia, still used by very large tankers and bulk carriers that cannot pass the canal and by ships going to South America.
• South Atlantic Route: western Europe and West Africa to the ports of Brazil and Argentina. Traffic is lighter because the lands on either side produce similar goods.
• North Pacific Route: links the western coast of North America with Yokohama, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Manila and Singapore.
• South Pacific Route: connects western Europe and North America with Australia and New Zealand through the Panama Canal, with Honolulu as a calling point.

The two canals that changed the map

The Suez Canal in Egypt was opened in 1869 and joins the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea. It is about 193 km long and, because the two seas stand at nearly the same level, it needs no locks; ships enter at Port Said in the north and leave at Suez in the south. It cut the voyage from western Europe to India by thousands of kilometres and made the Mediterranean route the main highway to Asia. It was nationalised by Egypt in 1956.

The Panama Canal was opened in 1914 and joins the Atlantic Ocean, through the Caribbean Sea, to the Pacific Ocean across the narrow isthmus of Central America. It is about 80 km long and is a lock canal, because ships must be lifted to the level of Gatun Lake and lowered again on the other side. Colon lies at the Atlantic end and Balboa near Panama City at the Pacific end. The canal shortened the sea journey from New York to San Francisco enormously, and the United States handed its control to Panama at the end of 1999. A third canal worth remembering is the Kiel Canal in Germany, which joins the North Sea to the Baltic Sea.

How ports are classified

Examiners ask the type more often than the name, so learn the categories with their standard examples.

• Ports of call: developed as stopping places for refuelling, water and stores, such as Aden, Honolulu and Singapore.
• Entrepot ports: collection centres where goods are brought in to be sent on elsewhere, such as Singapore for Asia, Rotterdam for Europe and Copenhagen.
• Packet stations or ferry ports: short-distance crossing points for passengers and mail, the classic pair being Dover in England and Calais in France.
• Oil ports: tanker ports such as Maracaibo in Venezuela, and refinery ports such as Abadan in Iran.
• Inland ports: ports reached by river or canal, such as Manchester, Memphis on the Mississippi and Kolkata on the Hooghly.
• Out ports: deep-water ports built away from the parent port to serve ships that cannot come upriver, such as Piraeus for Athens.
• Naval ports: ports serving warships and repair yards rather than trade.

Among the world's great commercial harbours, Rotterdam at the mouth of the Rhine is the largest port of Europe and is called the gateway to Europe; Singapore commands the Strait of Malacca; and Shanghai, Hong Kong, Antwerp, Hamburg, New York and Sydney are the names most often set in matching questions.

India on the world routes

India sits astride the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean route, which is why its coast has been a meeting point of trade for two thousand years. Mumbai on the west and Chennai, Visakhapatnam and Kolkata on the east handle the bulk of the country's overseas trade, Kandla is a tidal port in the Gulf of Kachchh, Kolkata is a riverine inland port on the Hooghly, and the southernmost of the major ports is V. O. Chidambaranar, formerly Tuticorin, in Tamil Nadu.