A contour canal is an artificially-dug navigable canal which closely follows the contour line of the land it traverses, in order to avoid costly engineering works such as:

Because of this, these canals are characterised by their meandering course.

In the United Kingdom, many of the canals built in the period from 1770 to 1800 were contour canals - for example, the Thames & Severn Canal completed in 1789, and the Oxford Canal completed in 1790. Later canals tended to be much straighter and more direct - a good example is the Shropshire Union Canal engineered by Thomas Telford.

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References

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  • Day, Lance and Ian McNeil. (1996). Biographical Dictionary of the History of Technology. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-06042-7.