Oceans covers over 70% of the Earth’s surface, and it makes up 97% of all water on the planet. But, humans traverse the seas everyday despite its massive size and ubiquity.
Millions of people hit the high seas each day with a wide range of vessels from tiny sailboats to massive oil tankers to get cargo from one place to another.
What’s new?
The interactive map has shipping routes built from 250 million data points to show how boats move across the ocean.
Also, a dedicated website tracks the world’s ships in real-time, providing a unique picture of what is happening at sea. This can be seen from a snapshot from MarineTraffic and it allows you to see in real time all major voyage ships around the Deep Blue Sea.
But this map only applies to all major commercial vessels. Any oil tanker, cargo vessel, cruise ship, or fishing boat can be spotted, and it makes sense if some interesting observations are made.
Tanker Observation
To get a glimpse of these maps, we first adjust the filters to only show oil tankers. This leads us to an interesting fact that every day, about 18.5 million barrels transit through the Strait of Hormuz between Iran and Oman, and 16 million barrels go through the Strait of Malacca between Indonesia and Malaysia.
A visual of the Strait of Hormuz traffic stats, showing only oil tankers. (Dots are tankers that are not moving, while arrows represent tankers that are currently on course.)
Moving further, we now see the ships going through the Strait of Malacca, which at its narrowest point is only 1.7 miles (2.7 km) wide.
Looking towards the Eastern seas, we see how the oil from the Persian Gulf reaches to the South China Sea. This strait is vital helping big ships not to detour thousands of miles around the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Java to find the next suitable waterway.
The Coast Of Somalia
Highlighting the coast of Somalia shows us how the above straits heading through the coast off of Somalia, a piracy and hydrocarbon theft region is vulnerable.
This situation around Somalia is seen from the traversing ship’s path, although quite a few daring tanker moving about 500 miles (800 km) east of Mogadishu.
Northern sea marine traffic
Inline with the above observations, here comes the marine traffic map with quiet a few passenger boats hanging around the Antarctic Peninsula vessels It’s the few. It is the part of the continent closest to Argentina and a destination for cruise ships.
Do check out the live map for yourself and play around with the filters to make interesting observation. It’s also interesting to see what’s happening in your local waters, as well.
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Source: Visual Capitalist
