Strait of Hormuz
The World's Most Important Oil Chokepoint
One-fifth of global oil—$1.2 billion per day—transits a 39-km gap where Iran's coastal missiles can hold the world economy at ransom.
Chokepoints
The maritime straits and canals through which global trade and energy supplies must pass.
20 articles
Foundational
Strait of Malacca
Asia's Lifeline and Strategic Vulnerability
The Strait of Malacca is a 2.7-km bottleneck near Singapore carrying a third of global trade and most of China's oil. Closing it would cripple East Asia.
Taiwan Strait
The Most Dangerous Flashpoint on Earth
90% of advanced semiconductors are made on one side of this 130-km passage. A Chinese assault here would trigger the gravest global crisis since 1945.
Major Topics
Strait of Gibraltar
Britain seized the Rock in 1704 and never left. This 14-km gap between Europe and Africa still gates all Mediterranean access and 20% of world trade.
Suez Canal
Egypt's 193-km shortcut carries 12-15% of global trade. When blockages or wars shut it—as history repeatedly shows—the world economy convulses.
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Bab el-Mandeb
Houthi attacks proved this 26-km gap between Yemen and Djibouti can reroute global shipping—disrupting 10% of seaborne trade overnight.
Bering Strait
The only maritime border between the United States and Russia — an 82-kilometre gap where the two superpowers are barely visible to each other across the ice. As the Arctic melts, it is the Pacific door to the Northern Sea Route and a new front in great-power competition.
Bosphorus Strait
At 700 meters wide, this Istanbul waterway decides if Russia's Black Sea fleet reaches open ocean or stays trapped—giving Turkey outsized leverage.
Cape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope links the Atlantic and Indian Oceans at Africa's tip. The Cape Route revives whenever the Suez Canal and Red Sea route is unsafe.
Florida Straits
The 150-kilometre gap between Florida and Cuba is the principal sea exit from the Gulf of Mexico, the birthplace of the Gulf Stream, and the front line of US migration and drug-interdiction policy. A heavily trafficked passage — though not, by the strict definition, a global oil chokepoint.
GIUK Gap
The Greenland-Iceland-UK Gap is the oceanic gateway between the Arctic and the open Atlantic — the passage through which Russian submarines must transit to threaten Western shipping lanes. During the Cold War it was NATO's most critical anti-submarine warfare battleground; today it is again.
Kerch Strait
A shallow four-to-fifteen-kilometre gap between Crimea and the Russian mainland that controls all access to the Sea of Azov — and, since 2018, carries the bridge that ties occupied Crimea to Russia. It has become one of the most fought-over chokepoints of the Ukraine war.
Korea Strait
Split by Tsushima Island into two channels, the Korea Strait is the maritime gateway for Japan and Korea, the only practical exit for Russia's Pacific Fleet, and the site of the 1905 battle that announced Japan as a great power. Today it is a transit lane for Chinese–Russian naval patrols.
Lombok Strait
Between Bali and Lombok runs the deep, fast channel that the world's largest ships — and submerged submarines — use when the Strait of Malacca will not do. It is China's most viable bypass of the 'Malacca dilemma,' and a quiet front in the undersea contest of the Indo-Pacific.
Mozambique Channel
The 1,600-kilometre arm of the Indian Ocean between Mozambique and Madagascar is the deep-water route for tankers too large for Suez, the site of a vast gas discovery, and an arena where France, India, and China increasingly jostle. The Red Sea crisis has made it busier than ever.
Panama Canal
Drought, Chinese port deals, and booming demand are straining the lock system that saves global shipping the 13,000-km detour around Cape Horn.
Strait of Dover
The 33-kilometre gap between England and France is the narrowest point of the English Channel and the busiest seaway on earth — England's historic moat, the gateway to the North Sea, and now the front line of Europe's small-boat migration crisis.
Strait of Tiran
A narrow gap between Sinai and Arabia that controls the only sea access to Israel's Eilat and Jordan's Aqaba. Its closure in 1967 triggered the Six-Day War — and the 2017 transfer of its islands to Saudi Arabia has quietly made it a piece on the board of Israeli–Saudi normalisation.
Sunda Strait
Between Java and Sumatra lies the shorter but shallower alternative to the Strait of Malacca — guarded by Krakatoa, the volcano whose 1883 eruption killed tens of thousands and whose successor drowned hundreds in 2018. A busy regional artery that the biggest ships cannot use.
The Danish Straits
The Øresund and the Great and Little Belts are the only sea exits from the Baltic — and the route for some 40% of Russia's seaborne oil. A medieval toll-gate has become the front line of the West's struggle with Russia's sanctions-dodging shadow fleet.