The Panama Canal locks system, with each passing, lifts each ship up 85 feet (26 metres) to the main elevation of the Panama Canal and down again. It has a total of six steps (three up, three down for a ship’s passage). The total length of the lock structures, including the approach walls, is over 3 kilometres. It was one of the greatest engineering works ever to be undertaken at the time, when they opened in 1914.  No other concrete construction of comparable size was undertaken until the Hoover Dam in the 1930s.

Miraflores is the name of one of the three locks that form part of the Panama Canal.  It is the name of the small lake that separates these locks from the Pedro Miguel locks upstream.