[vidarh]

To add to your points on both flat terrain and waterways in England: in fact the current railway that runs a few blocks from my house runs along what used to be a canal dug from the Thames to enable transport. It was one of the last ones to open before the railway took over (and the operator went bankrupt and sold the land to a railway company that drained it and used the conveniently flattened land for more rails)

A local lake used to be an artificial reservoir to keep the canal filled.

The UK is full of canals that were viable to dig because of that flat terrain.

So large parts of England that were not reachable by river are still reachable by canal boat, and even more used to be before many of the canals were filled in or drained when no longer commercially viable for transport.

[dredmorbius]

And, researching just now: there are a few canals in Japan, though even a modern listing is short:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Canals_in_Japan

Among the earliest is the Takase River canal, in Kyoto, 9.7 kilometers, dug in 1611. Most of the remainder date to the 19th or 20th centuries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takase_River

The Tatsumi Canal was constructed in 1623, 11 km.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatsumi_Canal

Contrast the UK:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canals_of_the_United_Kingdom

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_canals_of_the_United_K...

[dredmorbius]

Right, though the bulk of canals in Europe were dug after 1500, and most of England's in the 18th & 19th centuries. This contrasts with Japan's general lack of same; digging through mountainous volcanic rock is far harder than flat limestone (and yields fewer fossils, another story).

China though has its Great Canal which dates to 12 BCE and has had pound locks since the 10th century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Canal_(China)

In the US the Erie Canal opened up the West and cemented New York City as a transport, commerce, and financial hub, beginning in the 1830s.