List of canals in the United States
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The following is a list of
canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flow un ...
s in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
:


Transportation canals in operation

This list includes active canals and artificial waterways that are maintained for use by boats. While some abandoned canals and drainage canals have stretches that can be paddled in a small craft like a
canoe A canoe is a lightweight narrow water vessel, typically pointed at both ends and open on top, propelled by one or more seated or kneeling paddlers facing the direction of travel and using a single-bladed paddle. In British English, the term ...
, these are not included in this list. The
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
also constructed the
Panama Canal The Panama Canal ( es, Canal de Panamá, link=no) is an artificial waterway in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean and divides North and South America. The canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and is a conduit ...
on territory it controlled.


Abandoned transportation canals


Irrigation, industrial, and drainage canals


Arizona

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Central Arizona Project The Central Arizona Project (CAP) is a 336 mi (541 km) diversion canal in Arizona in the southern United States. The aqueduct diverts water from the Colorado River to the Bill Williams Wildlife Refuge south portion of Lake Havasu ne ...
* Salt River Project Canals **
Arizona Canal The Arizona Canal is a major canal in central Maricopa County that led to the founding of several communities, now among the wealthier neighborhoods of suburban Phoenix, constructed in the late 1880s. Flood irrigation of residential yards is st ...


California

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All-American Canal The All-American Canal is an long aqueduct, located in southeastern California. It conveys water from the Colorado River into the Imperial Valley and to nine cities. It is the Imperial Valley's only water source, and replaced the Alamo Canal, w ...
*
Back Channel Back Channel is a canal in the Port of Long Beach, California, United States, and is nearby to Terminal Island, Island Grissom, and Thenard. It is also close to the port's East Basin and the Gerald Desmond Bridge. See also * Long Beach Naval ...
* Beardsley Canal *
Buena Vista Canal Buena Vista Canal is an irrigation canal in Kern County, California. It originates from the Carrier Canal at Coffee Road. The canal terminates at Lake Webb (and Buena Vista Lakebed) and the Kern River.Darling, Curtis. ''Kern County Place Names''. Th ...
*
California Aqueduct The Governor Edmund G. Brown California Aqueduct is a system of canals, tunnels, and pipelines that conveys water collected from the Sierra Nevada Mountains and valleys of Northern and Central California to Southern California. Named after Cali ...
* Calloway Canal * Carrier Canal *
Coachella Canal The Coachella Canal is a aqueduct that conveys Colorado River water for irrigation northwest from the All-American Canal to the Coachella Valley north of the Salton Sea in Riverside County, California. The canal was completed in 1949 and is curr ...
*
Colorado River Aqueduct The Colorado River Aqueduct, or CRA, is a water conveyance in Southern California in the United States, operated by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD). The aqueduct impounds water from the Colorado River at Lake Hava ...
*
Contra Costa Canal The Contra Costa Canal is a aqueduct in the U.S. state of California. Its construction began in 1937, with delayed completion until 1948 due to World War II shortages in labor and materials. A portion of the canal's right of way has been develope ...
*
Corning Canal Corning may refer to: People * Corning (surname) Places In Canada: * Corning, Saskatchewan In the United States of America: * Corning, Arkansas * Corning, California * Corning, Indiana * Corning, Iowa * Corning, Kansas * Corning, Michig ...
*
Delta–Mendota Canal The Delta–Mendota Canal is a aqueduct in central California, United States. The canal was designed and completed in 1951 by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation as part of the Central Valley Project. It carries freshwater to replace San Joaquin R ...
* Eastside Canal * Folsom South Canal * Friant-Kern Canal * Glenn Colusa Canal * Inter-California Canal *
Kern Island Canal Kern Island Canal is an irrigation canal in Kern County, California. It primarily irrigates farmland located on the Kern Lakebed, south of Bakersfield. It originates from a common diversion at Manor Street in Bakersfield, which also supplies the C ...
*
Los Angeles Aqueduct The Los Angeles Aqueduct system, comprising the Los Angeles Aqueduct (Owens Valley aqueduct) and the Second Los Angeles Aqueduct, is a water conveyance system, built and operated by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. The Owens Valley ...
*
Madera Canal The Madera Canal is a -long aqueduct in the U.S. state of California. It is part of the Central Valley Project managed by the United States Bureau of Reclamation to convey water north to augment irrigation capacity in Madera County. It was also t ...
* Orland South Canal * Orland North Canal * Pioneer Canal * Putah South Canal * Stine Canal * Tehama Colusa Canal


Florida

* Hillsboro Canal *
Miami Canal The Miami Canal, or C-6 Canal, flows from Lake Okeechobee in the U.S. state of Florida to its terminus at the Miami River, which flows through downtown Miami. The canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered ch ...
* North New River Canal *
Tamiami Canal The Tamiami Canal or C-4 Canal, is a canal located in southern Florida in the United States. It flows in a west to east direction from the western part of the state in the Everglades past the Miami International Airport to a salinity control cent ...
* West Palm Beach Canal


Hawaii

*Waiolama Canal,
Hilo Hilo () is a census-designated place (CDP) and the largest settlement in Hawaii County, Hawaii, Hawaii County, Hawaii, United States, which encompasses the Hawaii (island), Island of Hawaii. The population was 44,186 according to the 2020 United ...


Idaho

*
New York Canal The New York Canal is an irrigation canal in the Western United States, western United States, located in Southwestern Idaho, southwestern Idaho. Sourced from the Boise River, it originates at the Boise River Diversion Dam, Diversion Dam in ...


Illinois

*
North Shore Channel The North Shore Channel is a drainage canal built between 1907 and 1910 to flush the sewage-filled North Branch of the Chicago River down the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. The sewage carrying duty has been largely taken over by the Chicago ...
(popular for canoeing and kayaking)


Louisiana

*
17th Street Canal The 17th Street Canal is the largest and most important drainage canal in the city of New Orleans. Operating with Pump Station 6, it moves water into Lake Pontchartrain. The canal, along with the Orleans Canal and the London Avenue Canal, form ...
*
Carondelet Canal The Carondelet Canal, also known as the Old Basin Canal, was a canal in New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.A., operating from 1794 into the 1920s – nearly 135 years. Construction of the canal began in June 1794, on the orders of the Spanish Govern ...
* Florida Canal *
London Avenue Canal The London Avenue Canal is a drainage canal in New Orleans, Louisiana, used for pumping rain water into Lake Pontchartrain. The canal runs through the 7th Ward of New Orleans from the Gentilly area to the Lakefront. It is one of the three main drai ...
* New Orleans Outfall Canals * Orleans Canal *Washington-Palmetto Canal


Massachusetts

*
Holyoke Canal System The Holyoke Canal System is a system of power canals in Holyoke, Massachusetts. It is split into three canals based on elevation and distance from the inlet at the Holyoke Dam- the First Level Canal, Second Level Canal, and Third Level Canal. Cons ...
* Lowell Power Canal System


Michigan

*
Edison Sault Power Canal The Edison Sault Power Canal supplies the Saint Marys Falls Hydropower Plant, a Cloverland Electric Cooperative hydroelectric plant, in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. Excavation of the power canal began in September 1898 and was completed in June ...


Nebraska

* Loup Canal


New Jersey

*
Cape May Canal The Cape May Canal is a waterway connecting Cape May Harbor to the Delaware Bay, at the southern tip of Cape May County, New Jersey, Cape May County, New Jersey. There is a long history of unfulfilled plans for a canal across Cape May. available ...
*
Delaware and Raritan Canal The Delaware and Raritan Canal (D&R Canal) is a canal in central New Jersey, built in the 1830s, that served to connect the Delaware River to the Raritan River. It was an efficient and reliable means of transportation of freight between Philadel ...
*
Dundee Canal The Dundee Canal was an industrial canal in Clifton and Passaic in Passaic County, New Jersey. It was built between 1858 and 1861 and ran parallel to the Passaic River. It supplied hydropower and water for manufacturing. There was interest by so ...
*
Morris Canal The Morris Canal (1829–1924) was a common carrier anthracite coal canal across northern New Jersey that connected the two industrial canals at Easton, Pennsylvania across the Delaware River from its western terminus at Phillipsburg, New Jers ...
*
Point Pleasant Canal The Point Pleasant Canal is a canal in Point Pleasant, New Jersey. It was completed in 1925 to connect the Manasquan Inlet and Manasquan River with Bay Head Harbor on the northern end of Barnegat Bay. The canal is part of the Intracoastal Waterw ...
* Raritan Water Power Canal * Washington Canal


Texas

*
American Canal The American Canal is an irrigation canal in the Upper Rio Grande Valley near El Paso, Texas. The canal acquires water from the Rio Grande from the American Diversion Dam at the Texas–New Mexico–Mexico border, northwest of downtown El ...
* Franklin Canal *
Riverside Canal (El Paso) The Riverside Canal is an irrigation canal in El Paso County beginning southeast of El Paso, Texas. The canal acquires water from the Riverside Diversion Dam on the Rio Grande southeast of El Paso. The canal is managed by the US Bureau of Recla ...
(Texas) *
Texas Irrigation Canals Texas has many irrigation canals with the majority of large canal networks in the Rio Grande Valley and the Gulf Coast, though smaller systems are located throughout the state. Canals provide water to dry climates to irrigate crops. Rio Grande Va ...


Natural inlets called canals

Lynn Canal Lynn Canal is an inlet (not an artificial canal) into the mainland of southeast Alaska. Lynn Canal runs about from the inlets of the Chilkat River south to Chatham Strait and Stephens Passage. At over in depth, Lynn Canal is the deepest fjord ...
and
Portland Canal , image = Hyder Alaska IMG 0276 (22495379342).jpg , alt = , caption = Portland Canal from Hyder, Alaska , image_bathymetry = , alt_bathymetry = , caption_bathymetry = , location = Alaska and British Columbia , group = , coordinates ...
in
Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...
and
Hood Canal Hood Canal is a fjord forming the western lobe, and one of the four main basins,Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
are natural
inlet An inlet is a (usually long and narrow) indentation of a shoreline, such as a small arm, bay, sound, fjord, lagoon or marsh, that leads to an enclosed larger body of water such as a lake, estuary, gulf or marginal sea. Overview In marine geogra ...
s that use the name ''canal''.


Canals by state

These are man made canals in each state that have been given a name and may consist of a narrow irrigation or drainage ditch to a large ship, municipal water and/or irrigation canal. States with extensive agricultural acreage may have many hundred to thousands of canals.
USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, a ...
Topographical map numbers and latitudes and longitudes of each canal, usable as inputs into Google, Bing, etc. maps, are usually given.


References


See also

*
List of canals This article is a collection of lists of natural (rivers, estuaries, and straits) and artificial (reservoirs, canals and locks) waterways. Waterways lists Natural waterways * List of estuaries in England * List of straits in the Unite ...
*
Sheep Creek Sheep Creek is a geographical place name. With variations, the name is given to hundreds of bodies of water, roads, canals, reservoirs and populated areas in the United States and other countries. It is the name of a tributary to Lockyear Creek in ...
{{World topic, List of canals in, noredlinks=yes
Canals Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or river engineering, engineered channel (geography), channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport watercraft, vehicles (e.g. ...
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
Canals Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or river engineering, engineered channel (geography), channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport watercraft, vehicles (e.g. ...
Canals Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or river engineering, engineered channel (geography), channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport watercraft, vehicles (e.g. ...