The Suez Canal is an artificial sea level 120-mile waterway that stretches from Port Said on the Mediterranean Sea to the south all the way to the city of Suez. The canal separates the African continent from Asia, and it provides the shortest maritime route between Europe and the lands lying around the Indian and western Pacific oceans. It is one of the world’s most heavily used shipping lanes. The canal does not take the shortest route across the isthmus, which is only 121 km (75 miles). The canal was constructed by the Suez Canal Authority, its owner and operator, from 1859 to 1869 — it took approximately ten years. It was officially opened on November 17, 1869. The intended purpose of the canal was for commerce and war. It was built to be open to ships to all countries. A human-made waterway, the Suez Canal is one of the world’s most heavily used shipping lanes, carrying over 12% of world trade by volume. The canal usually allows 50 cargo ships to pass daily between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. The Suez Canal is important because it is the shortest maritime route from Europe to Asia. Prior to its construction, ships headed toward Asia had to embark on an arduous journey around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa. Because of its strategic location, the canal is both heavily used and heavily protected. The Suez canal has recently been in the news due to a Panama registered container ship Ever Given on its way from China to Rotterdam in the Netherlands ran aground probably due to bad weather coupled with human failure. Ever Given is a 2018 built vessel which is 400 metres long and 59 metres wide. It weighs 2 Lakh tonnes. Since the ship got stuck sideways, it completely jammed the canal. The blockade caused a pile up of 369 ships on either side of the blockage and the daily loss due to the blockade of Suez Canal is estimated at $ 9 billion per day. The blockage was finally cleared on Sunday but the backlog of ships will create a bottle neck for a few days before normalcy is restored.