How the Darién Gap Prevents the Pan-American Highway From Becoming the World’s Longest Road

Comedians Jay Foreman and Mark Cooper-Jones of Map Men quite amusingly explained the origins of the Pan-American Highway, which was planned as the longest road in the world with a single geographical interruption.

The purpose of the highway wasn’t just to make it possible to go from top to bottom or complete an impressive record. It was to bring countries together and create economic benefits. And for the vast majority of the route, that’s exactly what it did.

This interruption is known as the Darién Gap, a small, generally impassable, roadless stretch of rainforest that lies between the borders of Panama and Colombia. There are several reasons this piece of land remains unfinished. First of which is the fear of losing the natural environment.

The Darién is home to more than 40,000 indigenous people who have long opposed the road fearing it would bring slash-and-burn agriculture and spontaneous colonisation, destroying their way of life not to mention all the biodiverse biodiversity.

There are also highly political reasons.

There are a great deal of people who don’t want a road connection between Colombia and Panama including Panama. Panama used to be a part of Colombia. It fought hard for its independence in 1903 and was only able to keep it because the Darién Gap stopped the Colombian army from ever being able to easily take it back.

Either way, both Map Men found the entire road to be a bit of a general bother.

Is it a good thing or a bad thing that you can’t drive from North to South America? Well, there doesn’t have to be just one answer, does there? …But one thing we can agree on is – It’s really annoying.