What percent of the world's canals are without locks?

Baloo55th

An ideal canal has no rise or fall - where the land around it does so, it can be carried on an embankment or sunk in a cutting, or even buried in a tunnel. Unfortunately, only fairly small differences in level can be dealt with by banks and cuttings, and tunnels are expensive and can leave out customers on the higher ground. My local canal, the Leeds and Liverpool, has a very long pound from Liverpool right out to Burscough because the land is very flat. After that, things get more tricky. Very few British canals are lockless - depending on your definition of canal. The main Lancaster Canal is lockless, but its Glasson branch has five locks. Is that one canal or two? Even where a canal is lockless for its working length, there may need to be a lock at one end, to connect to a river or even the sea. Is that lockless? The amount of very flat land traversed by canals isn't great, so most canals will have a lock at least - and those that don't tend to be short (excepting, of course, the Suez Canal which is regarded as the longest). Can't find a figure for the number, but hopefully someone else will... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lock_(water_transport) Aug 25 08, 1:06 PM