Stretching for about 30,000 km and crossing the entire North American and South American continents, the Pan-American Highway is regarded as the longest road in the world. In reality, the Pan-American Highway is not a single road, but a network of roads that extends from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, with a single break along the border between Panama and Colombia, known as the Darién Gap.
The concept of connecting the entire American continent goes back to the 19th century, and was originally planned to be a railroad. The idea of building a highway instead emerged in the 1920s, and in 1937 the United States, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina agreed on a plan to construct a road that would cross the Americas. The highway was then built in various phases over the course of the following decades.
However, the official route of the Pan-American Highway only goes from Nuevo Laredo, at the border beteween the United States and Mexico, to Buenos Aires in Argentina. The Alaska Highway that goes through Alaska, Yukon, and British Columbia in the United States and Canada is considered the northern extension of the Pan-American Highway. Other sections are unofficially part of the system, such as the northermost section in Alaska, the southernmost section in Argentina, and the highways crossing the United States and parts of Canada. Nevertheless, here we will consider the de facto route of the Pan-American Highway.
The official and more common routes of the Pan-American Highway.
The Pan-American Highway begins in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, a tiny village located on the northern coast of Alaska, facing the Arctic Ocean. Just south of this town is the small community of Deadhorse, where the Dalton Highway begins. Sometimes regarded as one of the most dangerous roads in the world due to the harsh climate, this highway crosses the northern half of Alaska from Deadhorse to Livengood. From here, the route of the Pan-American Highway follows the Alaska Route 2 through Fairbanks. The Alaska Route 2 becomes the Alaska Highway starting in Delta Junction, and then continues in Canada after crossing the border.
The Alaska Highway then follows the route of the Yukon Highway 1 passing through Whitehorse, the capital of Yukon. This road becomes the British Columbia Highway 97 after entering British Columbia, and the Pan-American Highway follows this route south until Dawson Creek. This marks the end of the Alaska Highway, and the Pan-American Highway continues on British Columbia Highway 2, which connects Dawson Creek to the border between British Columbia and Alberta. Then, the route follows the Alberta Highway 43 until the end, merging into Alberta Highway 16 (or Yellowhead Highway) near Edmonton, the capital of Alberta, and the first major center along the Pan-American Highway.
View of the Dalton Highway in northern Alaska (Alaska DOT&PF, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0).
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Here, the Pan-American Highway splits into two major possible routes that lead travelers across the United States until the border with Mexico. The western route follows the Alberta Highway 2 starting from Edmonton and through Calgary until Fort Macleod. From here, the route continues with the Alberta Highway 3 until Lethbridge, and then the Alberta Highway 4 to the United States-Canada border. After entering the United States, the Pan-American Highway continues on Interstate 15 until Butte, Montana, and then on Interstate 90 through Billings, the largest city of Montana, before crossing into Wyoming.
In Buffalo, Wyoming, the route turns to Interstate 25, a major highway also known as the Pan-American Freeway. The Pan-American Highway follows Interstate 25 for its entire length, going through various major cities such as Cheyenne, capital of Wyoming, Denver, capital of Colorado, Santa Fe, capital of New Mexico, and Albuquerque, the most populous city of New Mexico, ending in Las Cruces, New Mexico. From here, travelers should take Interstate 10, crossing into Texas and going through El Paso, ultimately reaching San Antonio, where the western and eastern routes through the United States join once again.
The eastern route from Edmonton to San Antonio instead continues along the Yellowhead Highway through Alberta Highway 16, Saskatchewan Highway 16, and Manitoba Highway 16, passing by Saskatoon, the largest city in Saskatchewan, and ending near Winnipeg, capital and largest city of Manitoba. This road merges into Manitoba Highway 1, which goes through Winnipeg and is part of the Trans-Canada Highway. From Winnipeg, many travelers continue along Manitoba Highway 1 and then Ontario Highway 17 until Thunder Bay, Ontario, a city on the shores of Lake Superior. The Ontario Highway 61 then goes south from Thunder Bay to the border with the United States. On the other side of the border this road is the Minnesota State Highway 61, which goes along the coast of Lake Superior until Duluth, Minnesota.
From here, the route of the Pan-American Highway follows Interstate 35, passing through the Minneapolis–Saint Paul region, which includes the largest city and the capital of Minnesota. Interstate 35 then passes by Des Moines, capital and largest city of Iowa, Kansas City, the largest city of Missouri, Wichita, the largest city of Kansas, and Oklahoma City, capital and largest city of Oklahoma. After entering Texas, Interstate 35 goes through the Dallas metropolitan area, and Austin, the capital of the state, merging into the western route of the Pan-American Highway in San Antonio. The Pan-American Highway then continues to follow Interstate 35 from San Antonio to Laredo, at the border with Mexico. These two routes are the most common, but there are numerous other possibilities to cross the United States.
Interstate 25 near Santa Fe, New Mexico (John Phelan, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0).
The official route of the Pan-American Highway beings after crossing the United States-Mexico border from Laredo to Nuevo Laredo. The Mexican Federal Highway 85 then connects Nuevo Laredo to Mexico City passing by major cities such as Monterrey, Ciudad Victoria, Ciudad Valles, and Pachuca. After bypassing Mexico City and reaching Puebla through Mexican Federal Highway 150D, the Pan-American Highway follows the Mexican Federal Highway 190 through Oaxaca City and until Tehuantepec. From here travelers can briefly follow Mexican Federal Highway 185 before taking the second section of Mexican Federal Highway 190, passing by Tuxtla Gutiérrez, San Cristóbal de las Casas, and Comitán, finally reaching the border with Guatemala.
After entering Guatemala, this road becomes the Central American Highway 1, which crosses the entire country until the border with El Salvador, passing by the capital Guatemala City. The Central America Highway 1 continues in El Salvador, going through the capital San Salvador, and in Honduras, where there is only a small section of this road before crossing into Nicaragua. Once again, the Central America Highway 1 crosses the entire country north to south, passing by the capital Managua on route to Costa Rica.
In Costa Rica, the Pan-American Highway is composed of a northern section, the National Route 1 from the northern border to the capital San José, and a southern section, the National Route 2 from San José to the southern border with Panama. This second section includes the highest point of the entire Pan-American Highway, as the road reaches an altitude of 3,335 meters, passing almost on the top of the Cerro de la Muerte massif. The Pan-American Highway then crosses into Panama, passing over the Panama Canal and through Panama City. The road continues from Panama City until the village of Yaviza, where the northern section of the Pan-American Highway comes to an abrupt end.
The Pan-American Highway is interrupted for around 100 km along the Panama-Colombia border, a region known as the Darién Gap. This area has no roads because it is characterized by dense forests, swamplands, and an overall harsh terrain. Building a road through this area would be considerably expensive and would cause extensive environmental damage. Efforts that were made to bridge the gap in the past were met with harsh resistence by locals and environmental agencies, so the gap remains and it is likely to remain in the future. Crossing the Darién Gap on foot is possible but extremely dangerous, not only because of the inhospitable jungle, but also because the area is dominated by drug cartels, so traveling through this area is not advised.
Map of the Darién Gap (cmglee, OpenStreetMap contributors, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0).
The best option to cross the gap is flying from Panama City to Cartagena or Medellín in Colombia. A more complex option is to fly from Panama City to Puerto Obaldía, a small town on the Caribbean coast of Panama with no road access. From here, there are boats that reach Capurganá, a town just across the border in Colombia. Another boat ride is necessary to travel from Capurganá to Turbo, where the southern section of the Pan-American Highway begins.
From Turbo, the Pan-American Highway follows Colombia Highway 62 to Medellín, and then Colombia Highway 25, passing by Cali and reaching the border with Ecuador. An alternative route goes from Medellín to the capital of Colombia, Bogotá, before entering once again Colombia Highway 25 more south. The Pan-American Highway in Ecuador is entirely composed of Ecuador Highway 35, which crosses the country from north to south passing by the capital Quito.
After crossing the border with Peru, this road becomes the Peru Highway 1, which goes all the way through the country for over 4,000 km near the coast, until the border with Chile, and passes by various major cities including the capital Lima. This highway is divided into a northern section from the border with Ecuador to Lima, and a southern one from Lima to the border with Chile. In Chile, the Pan-American Highway follows the Chile Route 5 through the northern half of the country.
The Pan-American Highway in the desert of southern Peru (Angelica Jacobi, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0).
The route splits once again near Valparaíso, with a western path along the Pacific coast, and an eastern path that enters Argentina and then goes towards Tierra del Fuego. The western route continues on Chile Route 5 to the capital Santiago, and then south for another 1,000 km to Puerto Montt, where the path splits once again. One possibility is to continue on Chile Route 5, which then goes to the island of Chiloé after a ferry crossing. Chile Route 5 then crosses the island until the town of Quellón, which is one of the southern ends of the Pan-American Highway. The alternative route goes south from Puerto Montt on Chile Route 7, passing through the sparsely populated Chilean Patagonia for over 1,200 km until the small town of Villa O’Higgins, which constitutes the southern end of the highway.
However, the more common, and longest, option is to go from Chile to Argentina taking Chile Route 60 from Llaillay, which is located along the Chile Route 5 between Valparaíso and Santiago. Chile Route 60 reaches the border with Argentina, after which it turns into Argentina National Route 7. This highway crosses the country from west to east, passing by Mendoza and ending with the capital Buenos Aires. This marks the official end of the Pan-American Highway, but the unofficial route continues south from Buenos Aires along the Argentina National Route 3. This road runs for over 3,000 km near the Atlantic coast, crossing all of Patagonia until the border with Chile, after which this road becomes Chile Route 255. However, travelers should soon turn to Chile Route 257 and take a ferry to reach Tierra del Fuego. After a section through the Chilean Tierra del Fuego, Chile Route 257 crosses back into Argentina, and the route soon joins once again the Argentina National Route 3. This road continues south to Ushuaia, the capital of the Argentine Tierra del Fuego, officially ending a bit more west, in the Tierra del Fuego National Park.
The end of the Argentina National Route 3 and the Pan-American Highway near Ushuaia, Argentina (W. Bulach, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0).
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