China and Nicaragua have resumed diplomatic relations, which is an encouraging heavy news, and many netizens are a little confused in addition to excitement: although they have heard the name of Nicaragua before, where is this country? If you are given a map of the world, I believe that many people will find it really difficult to find it in a short period of time.
China and Nicaragua resumed diplomatic relations
It turned out that Nicaragua was in Central America, the thin place where the North American continent and the South American continent were connected. It is bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. It is bordered by the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and is quite close to the famous Panama Canal, in fact the country itself has the conditions to dig the canal.
Location in Nicaragua
On the map, Nicaragua's territory is not small, and it may seem extremely difficult to dig a canal, but it is not, because it has a huge Lake Nicaragua, which is the 21st largest lake in the world, with an area of 8264 square kilometers, and is a freshwater lake.
The western shore of Lake Nicaragua is very close to the Pacific Ocean, the nearest point is only 19 km, while to the east is a San Juan River that heads towards the Atlantic Ocean. Theoretically, a canal can be opened on a narrow isthmus between Lake Nicaragua and the Pacific Ocean to connect the two oceans.
Lake Nicaragua and San Juan River
Speaking of this Nicaragua Lake, there is also a very interesting feature, it is a real freshwater lake, but the lake is inhabited by thousands of sharks, sawfish, sea turtles, great sea carp and other marine animals, which is very amazing. For fear of sharks hurting people, swimming is prohibited in Lake Nicaragua. Viewing sharks and sea turtles by the lake has also become a browsing project. Why do the dominant sharks in the ocean appear in large numbers in a freshwater lake? Where did they come from?
Indians who have lived there for generations have their own sayings about this. They called Lake Nicaragua the "Sweet Sea" and built temples and altars on the islands in the lake. There is a legend among the Indians that many years ago, a group of fierce alien warriors invaded the area around the Sweet Sea, plundered the indigenous tribes by the lake, and sneaked into the Sweet Sea to try to find the legendary Mayan treasures.
Lake Nicaragua in Howhan
This action tarnished the sacredness of the Sweet Sea and angered the gods, so the gods released the underwater monsters, devouring all the invaders and helping the natives to defend their homeland. These monsters still guard the lake in the sweet sea, which is now the shark in the lake. Although this legend is beautiful and magical, it obviously does not stand up to scientific scrutiny, so another more plausible claim has emerged, speculating that sharks are related to the origin of Lake Nicaragua.
It turns out that this great lake was a sea tens of thousands of years ago, part of the Pacific Ocean. Later, due to the volcanic eruption, the originally open bay was closed, which formed a huge lake. Over time, fresh water continues to flow in, and the water in the lake gradually fades, eventually transforming into a freshwater lake. Because the salt content is slowly decreasing, the marine life that has nowhere to go in the lake has gradually adapted to the change in salinity and become a saltwater organism that lives in freshwater lakes.
Lake Nicaragua sharks
This statement sounds very reasonable, Nicaraguan Lake is large, the water is also deep, if the marine life can gradually adapt to the freshwater environment over a long period of time, it is no problem to thrive here. Therefore, it is not excluded that some species have successfully transitioned to freshwater species in this process, and those that cannot adapt have disappeared. But for the sharks in Lake Nicaragua, this reasoning seems biased.
The sharks here have a resounding name – the Nicaraguan Lake Shark. In 1976, scientists studied and found that these sharks were actually a kind of bull shark. Bull sharks are common and dangerous sharks that often attack humans and are extremely adaptable. It can regulate the salt in the body at will, so it can survive in both salty water and fresh water. Bull sharks often go up the river. It was found in North America where the Mississippi River is 1,000 kilometers from the mouth of the river. Their entry into Lake Nicaragua from the Atlantic Ocean through the San Juan River, which is about 200 kilometers long, is a normal operation.
Bull sharks can live in fresh water
In fact, some of the other large marine fish in Lake Nicaragua, such as sawfish and sea chains, also have the ability to live in fresh water. The course of the San Juan River is not very long, and Lake Nicaragua is particularly large and deep, and the food is abundant, which has created a large number of sharks and other marine fish swimming into Lake Nicaragua through the river and living in the lake for a long time.
These sharks that swim against the current bring nicaragua tourism resources and income, but these are small amounts of money, Nicaragua has had the opportunity to make absolutely big money in history, but it has become a bad project, and it is one of the longest-running projects in history, that is, the aforementioned Nicaragua Canal.
Nicaragua and the Isthmus of Panama are two of the best places to build canals connecting the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. The narrowest point of the Isthmus of Panama is only 48 kilometers, and the length of the canal built later is only 65 kilometers (between the coastlines on both sides), which is arguably the shortest excavation route. The silver produced in Peru was shipped to the Isthmus of Panama, then transported through the Isthmus by animal power, and then loaded on merchant ships to Europe.
Location of Nicaragua with the Panama Canal
But Nicaragua also has its own advantages, its land width, although wider, but with Lake Maragua and Lake Nicaragua, the two lakes are connected by rivers, between Lake Maragua and the Pacific Ocean is the lower-lying Plain of León, a distance of less than 50 kilometers, and between Lake Nicaragua and the Atlantic Ocean, there is the San Juan River available. Before the opening of the Panama Canal, Lake Maragua-Lake Nicaragua-San Juan River itself was a pre-existing water transport line.
Because of these advantages, the concept of the Nicaragua Canal was conceived in the early 19th century, and like the Panama Canal, interested in this plan were the two great powers of the world at that time: Britain and France, and the local power of the Americas that was gradually beginning to rise: the United States. After the Mexican-American War, the power of the United States was greatly expanded, and a canal connecting the two oceans was of great significance to the United States, so it began to operate in Nicaragua and Panama (formerly Colombia).
The presence of Lake Nicaragua is very beneficial to the construction of canals
But at that time, the world's colonial powers were Britain and France, which did not want the United States to dominate Central America and the canal, so they also vigorously promoted the development of the canal, and the three powers fought openly and secretly for many years, and finally France obtained the right to exploit the Panama Canal in 1882, and was responsible for Reseb, who had successfully excavated the Suez Canal.
But the French underestimated the difficulty of building the Panama Canal, where the harsh tropical climate and yellow fever epidemic made it difficult to excavate the canal, a large number of workers died, and corruption led to the bankruptcy of the canal company. Later, the United States intervened in the Panama Canal, encouraged Panama to independence from Colombia, and restarted the canal project, which was finally officially opened in 1914.
Panama canal
For decades, the Nicaragua Canal has been a spare tire. Nicaragua's own strength alone cannot complete such a huge project, but the powerful powers have always attached more importance to the Panama Canal, but have only used the Nicaragua Canal as a bargaining chip, and there has been no substantive progress. When the Panama Canal opened, the Nicaragua Canal became almost an empty phrase.
But the Nicaragua did not give up, they bypassed the United States to invite other countries to help them build the canal, if this wish came true, the Panama Canal controlled by the United States would have a huge impact, so the Americans were ashamed and angry, supported the opposition in 1909 to overthrow the Nicaraguan government, and directly sent troops to occupy Nicaragua in 1912, until 1933.
Nicaragua then fell into a dictatorship that lasted for more than 40 years, and the dictator Somoza and his two sons obeyed the orders of the United States and naturally had no interest in the canal, until after the overthrow of the dictatorship in 1979, Nicaragua re-asserted its willingness to develop the canal. But with the United States continuing to control the Panama Canal, it is clearly unlikely to succeed.
The Somoza family ruled Nicaragua for more than 40 years
In 1999, Panama regained sovereignty over the canal, and the Nicaraguan canal seemed promising. Although the length of the Panama Canal is short, because it is a lock-type canal, ships need to go through multiple levels of lifting and descending to pass, and the river channel is narrow, which has a large limit on the tonnage of cargo ships, and before the expansion of the new channel in 2016, the load capacity of Panamax cargo ships could only reach about 65,000 tons.
Panama Canal Locks
If the Nicaragua Canal can be opened, with the help of favorable geographical conditions, it is possible to achieve a wider and deeper channel, and it is said that it can pass a huge ship with a maximum tonnage of 400,000 tons, which has a huge advantage over the Panama Canal. Due to the rapids of the San Juan River, which can only pass shallow ships, and is currently the boundary river between Nicaragua and Costa Rica, it is very troublesome to expand, so the new Nicaragua Canal no longer passes through the San Juan River, but directly opens up the land between Lake Nicaragua and the oceans on the east and west sides, with a total length of about 276 kilometers, and two locks need to be built.
The plan was actually developed by a Chinese company that planned to invest $50 billion in 2014 to build this magnificent project in five years. However, the reality is very humiliating, the Nicaragua Canal has never been able to officially start construction, in fact, it was used as a tool for capital operation, and eventually it was not solved.
Nicaragua Canal Programme
In 2016, the Panama Canal was expanded to allow the new channel to open 14,000 boxes of supertextiles, another major blow to the Nicaragua Canal. The need to rebuild this canal, which has been in ruins for more than a century, has become less and less necessary, and the investment is astronomical, and the dream of the Nicaraguan people for the canal is probably difficult to realize.