Pan-American Highway

Pan-American Highway, system of highways extending from Alaska through South America (see Road). The northern section of the route, beginning in Fairbanks, Alaska, and continuing to the city of Dawson Creek, British Columbia, is called the Alaska Highway. Another route connects Fairbanks to Prudhoe Bay on the north coast of Alaska. In Mexico and Central America, the segment known as the Inter-American Highway runs from Laredo, Texas, to Panama City, Panama. The Alaska and the Inter-American highways are connected by routes in the United States and Canada. One section of the Pan-American Highway ends in Panama’s southernmost province and begins again across the border in Colombia.

In South America the highway follows the western coast of the continent to Santiago, Chile, turning east across the Andes to Buenos Aires, Argentina. The Simón Bolívar Highway forms an important northern branch of the highway system, connecting the Atlantic port of La Guaira, near Caracas, Venezuela, with Bogotá, Colombia. From Buenos Aires, the main highway extends up the eastern coast of South America through Montevideo, Uruguay, to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A central branch leads from Buenos Aires to Asunción, Paraguay, where the highway joins a transverse route that makes possible a coast-to-coast connection from Paranaguá, Brazil, via Asunción and La Paz, Bolivia, to Lima, Peru. Another transverse route will connect Lima and Brasília, the capital of Brazil. The Bolivariana Highway extends from Maracaibo, Venezuela, and links the inner regions of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Peru. Other routes reach Quellón, Chile, and Ushuaia, Argentina, near the southern tip of South America, in Tierra del Fuego.

Since the first Pan-American Highway Congress at Buenos Aires in 1925, the United States has cooperated with Latin American countries in planning and building the international highway system. Subsequent congresses have been held to plan the system and to facilitate the movement of international traffic.