Pan-American Highway

American  

noun

1. a road system proposed in the 1920s linking nations of the Western Hemisphere, extending from Alaska to Santiago, Chile, with some gaps remaining in Panama and Colombia. The section between Nuevo Laredo, Mexico and Panama City is known as the Inter-American Highway Total length about 16,000 miles (25,744 km).

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Example Sentences

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Pan-American Highway

Crossing the Pan-American Highway on foot is prohibited by Peruvian law.

From BBC ● Aug. 9, 2025

Parts were so inaccessible that when engineers built the Pan-American Highway in the 1930s, linking Alaska to Argentina, only one major stretch was left unfinished — a 66-mile roadless piece called the Darién Gap.

From New York Times ● Nov. 9, 2022

The closures, including of the Pan-American Highway, have forced the national electric company to ration electricity in Darien province, which borders Colombia.

From Seattle Times ● Jul. 20, 2022

"This is a show of strength until the government listens," 42-year-old protestor Manuel Cocha told AFP, one of dozens of protesters blocking the Pan-American Highway south of Quito.

From BBC ● Jun. 13, 2022

Here the Pan-American Highway had, as it turned out, sliced through some of the oldest public architecture anywhere on earth.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann