Geography World - Transport


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Introduction

  • Trade or the exchange of commodities largely depends on transportation and communication.

  • Transport is a service or facility for the carriage of persons and goods from one place to the other using humans, animals, and other means of transport.

  • Transportation normally occurs through land, water, and air.

World Transportation

Roadways

  • Road transport is more preferred especially for the short distance, as it provides door-to-door service.

  • The world’s total motorable road length is measured about 15 million km, of which North America accounts for 33%.

  • The highest road density and the highest number of vehicles are registered in North America.

  • In North America, the highway density is about 0.65 km per sq km. So, every place is not more than 20 km distance from a highway.

  • Roads laid along international boundaries are called border roads.

Railways

  • Probably, the first public railway line was opened in 1825 between Stockton and Darlington in northern England.

  • Belgium has the highest density of 1 km of railway for every 6.5 sq. km area.

  • In Russia, railways account for about 90% of the country’s total transport with a dense network west of the Urals.

  • Australia has about 40,000 km of railways, of which 25% are found in New South Wales alone.

  • Trans–continental railways run across the continent and connect its two ends.

  • Trans–Siberian Railways is major rail route of Russia, which runs from St. Petersburg in the west to Vladivostok on the Pacific Coast in the east.

  • Major cities that trans-Siberian railways connects are Moscow, Ufa, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, Chita, and Khabarovsk (as shown in the map given below).

  • Trans-Siberian railways is the most important route in Asia and the longest (i.e. 9,332 km) double-tracked and electrified trans–continental railway in the world.

Trans Siberian
  • Trans–Canadian Railways is 7,050 km long rail-line, running between Halifax in the east and Vancouver on the Pacific Coast in Canada.

Trans Canadian
  • Major cities that trans-Canadian railways connects are Montreal, Ottawa, Winnipeg, and Calgary.

  • The Orient Express runs from Paris to Istanbul passing through the cities Strasbourg, Munich, Vienna, Budapest, and Belgrade.

Orient Express

Waterways

  • The sea routes offer a smooth highway traversable in all directions with no maintenance costs.

  • The Northern Atlantic Sea Route covers one fourth of the world’s foreign trade; so, it is the busiest sea route in the world and popularly known as the Big Trunk Route.

  • The Mediterranean–Indian Ocean Sea Route connects the highly industrialized Western European regions with West Africa, South Africa, South-east Asia, and the commercial agriculture and livestock economies of Australia and New Zealand.

  • The Cape of Good Hope Sea Route connects West European and West African countries with Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay in South America.

  • Trade across the vast North Pacific Ocean moves by many routes, which converge at Honolulu.

  • The Panama and Suez Canals are two vital man-made navigation canals.

  • Connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, the Suez Canal had been constructed in 1869.

Suez Canal
  • Suez Canal was constructed between Port Said in the north and Port Suez in the south in Egypt (as shown in the map given below).

  • Suez Canal is about 160 km long and 11 to 15 m deep.

  • About 100 ships travel daily through Suez Canal and each ship takes 10-12 hours to cross the canal.

Panama Canal
  • Panama Canal connects the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west (as shown in the image given below).

  • Panama Canal was constructed across the Panama Isthmus between Panama City and Colon by the U.S. government.

Route
  • The reduction in distance because of the construction of Suez Canal and Panama Canal is shown in the following map −

  • Rhine River flows through Germany and the Netherlands.

  • The Rhine is navigable for 700 km from Rotterdam, at its mouth in the Netherlands to Basel in Switzerland.

  • The Great Lakes of North America i.e. Superior, Huron, Erie, and Ontario are connected by Soo Canal and Welland Canal to form an inland waterway.

  • Pipelines are normally used extensively to transport liquids and gases such as water, petroleum, and natural gas for an uninterrupted flow.

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