Pan-American Highway

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The Pan-American Highway is a vast network of roads that stretches approximately 30,000 kilometers (about 19,000 miles) from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, in the northernmost part of North America to Ushuaia, Argentina, at the southern tip of South America. It is recognized as the longest road in the world and serves as a significant overland route connecting multiple countries across the Americas.

The highway traverses through 14 countries in total, including Canada, the United States, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia. Notably, no official road in the U.S. or Canada is designated as part of the Pan-American Highway; it officially begins at the U.S.-Mexico border in Nuevo Laredo. A significant interruption in the highway is the Darién Gap, a dense rainforest area between Panama and Colombia. No road traverses the Darien Gap to connect the two countries for traffic, and although ferries previously carried vehicles around the gap to service this need, no car carrying ferries have operated there in recent decades. The primary alternative is to ship a car by cargo ship from one country to the other.