3) In 2012, most ships steered clear of Somalia Ships that can't fit through the strait (its minimum depth is about 82 feet) have to take a detour of thousands of miles further south. Unfortunately, there's no easy way around. Technically, the three bordering states - Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia - are responsible for security in this region, defending it against piracy, but because it's so crucial, the US, China, India, and Japan have all provided assistance in securing the region. About 40 percent of world trade passes through this strait each year, including much of the crude oil that goes from the Middle East to China.īut the narrow strait is also vulnerable to disruption - and in recent years, there's been an uptick of pirate attacks in these straits. One of the most important shipping lanes on the planet is the Strait of Malacca, the shortest route between the Pacific and Indian Oceans, which you can see here as a congested line of ships traveling past Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. 2) There's a major shipping choke point around Malaysia and Singapore There are also thick red lines streaming out of the Valdez Terminal in Alaska, which is at the southern end of the Alaska Pipeline, bringing oil from fields in the north. As you can see, both Louisiana and Texas are major hydrocarbon hubs. The red lines above trace ships carrying liquid fuels - crude oil or gasoline. It's also easy to spot some hubs of the global economy with this map.
![cargoship threw pirate waters route cargoship threw pirate waters route](https://cargofromchina.com/wp-content/uploads/shipping-routes-from-China.png)
Lawrence River that allows ships to travel from the Atlantic to the Great Lakes, or the complex Volga-Baltic waterway in Russia.
![cargoship threw pirate waters route cargoship threw pirate waters route](https://www.arctictoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/180914-Venta-Maersk-Route-2018-Malte-Humpert.jpg)
You can also see a few of the major river routes where large ships can navigate - like the Amazon River in northern Brazil, or the St. (Though that may change as summer sea ice keeps receding.) Even here, you can clearly see the continents, save for the region above the Arctic circle, where few ships travel. You can toggle the map so that it only shows major shipping routes and nothing else. Here are a few neat highlights from playing around with the thing: 1) You can trace the outlines of continents solely by looking at shipping routes They then worked with the data visualization studio Kiln to make this map. The researchers assembled data from the thousands of commercial ships that moved across the ocean in 2012. You can use the toggles at the top of the map to break down the ships by type - container ships (yellow), dry bulk carriers (blue), oil and fuel tankers (red), gas carriers (green), and ships transporting vehicles (purple) - or zoom in on different regions. Now there's a great way to visualize this entire process, through this stunning interactive map from the UCL Energy Institute: Clothes, flat-screen TVs, grain, cars, oil - transporting these goods from port to port is what makes the global economy go 'round.
![cargoship threw pirate waters route cargoship threw pirate waters route](https://www.rcinet.ca/eye-on-the-arctic/wp-content/uploads/sites/30/2018/09/haaga-sea-trial-2-1024x576.jpg)
Each year, more than 11 billion tons of stuff gets carried around the world by large ships.