Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management or for conveyancing water transport vehicles. They carry free, calm surface flow under atmospheric pressure, and can be thought of as artificial rivers.
The Alter Strom, in the sea resort of Warnemünde, Germany
The Royal Canal in Ireland
Small boat canals such as the Basingstoke Canal fuelled the industrial revolution in much of Europe and the United States.
Bridge on the Naviglio Grande, in the town of Cassinetta di Lugagnano, in Italy
A waterway is any navigable body of water. Broad distinctions are useful to avoid ambiguity, and disambiguation will be of varying importance depending on the nuance of the equivalent word in other ways. A first distinction is necessary between maritime shipping routes and waterways used by inland water craft. Maritime shipping routes cross oceans and seas, and some lakes, where navigability is assumed, and no engineering is required, except to provide the draft for deep-sea shipping to approach seaports (channels), or to provide a short cut across an isthmus; this is the function of ship canals. Dredged channels in the sea are not usually described as waterways. There is an exception to this initial distinction, essentially for legal purposes, see under international waters.
A floating market on one of Thailand's waterways
Car ferry across Lake Maggiore, Italy
The European waterway network, differentiating waterways by Class (I to VII)
