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≋≋≋──⚓──≋≋≋─────────────≋───────────≋≋≋──⚓──≋≋≋── STRAIT WATCH ////// GLOBAL SHIPPING CHOKEPOINT MONITOR ──────≋≋≋──⚓──────────────────≋≋≋──⚓──≋≋≋──────────

Strait of Hormuz, Suez & Red Sea — Live Ship Traffic Tracker

Daily transits at Suez · Panama · Hormuz · Malacca · Bab-el-Mandeb · Taiwan · Gibraltar · Cape of Good Hope · Bosphorus · Dover · vs baseline · AIS-derived via IMF PortWatch · auto-refresh every 15 min

✓ ALL CHOKEPOINTS FLOWING
Loading live AIS transit data from IMF PortWatch…
Last data: —
IMF PortWatch ↗
A shipping chokepoint is a narrow stretch of water that almost every ship between two regions has to pass through. Ten of them carry the bulk of global seaborne trade. When transits at a chokepoint drop sharply — a grounding, a drought, an attack, a blockade — the rest of the world feels it within days: empty shelves, fuel spikes, container rates doubling. This dashboard shows how many ships are crossing each one today, vs the 12-month normal, plus a plain-English status and a 30-day trend. Click any chokepoint to expand.
// GLOBAL SNAPSHOT
Chokepoints Tracked
10
global maritime arteries
Transits Today
—
ships crossing all 10
Vs Baseline
—
deviation from 12-mo avg
Disruptions
—
chokepoints below normal
Global Trade
~80%
touches these 10 lanes
Last Update
—
latest daily record · IMF PortWatch
// WORLD MAP · CLICK A MARKER
▸ Global Chokepoint Map click a marker or card to focus · dashed lines = major shipping routes
Flowing normally
Slightly off baseline
Significant drop / surge
Severe disruption
Live AIS-derived daily transit counts from IMF PortWatch (IMF × Oxford)
// CHOKEPOINT CARDS · TRANSITS VS BASELINE
// DETAIL VIEW
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—
—
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Loading…
Transits today
—
12-mo baseline
—
Deviation
—
Trade share
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Length / width
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Connects
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▸ 30-day transit trendhover for values
▸ Typical vessel mix% of annual transits
▸ Key facts
    ▸ Notable eventsrecent & historic
    ▸ Global disruption logmajor events that reshaped seaborne trade

    // WHY SHIPPING CHOKEPOINTS MATTER

    ⚓ Suez Canal (Egypt)

    193 km artificial sea-level canal linking the Mediterranean and Red Sea. Carries ~12% of global trade and ~30% of container traffic. A single grounding (Ever Given, March 2021) trapped $10B/day in cargo for 6 days.

    🚢 Panama Canal (Panama)

    82 km lock-based canal between the Atlantic and Pacific. Saves ships the 13,000 km trip around Cape Horn. Drought in 2023–24 forced the authority to cut daily transits by a third — an unprecedented climate chokepoint squeeze.

    ⚡ Strait of Hormuz (Iran / Oman)

    Only sea route out of the Persian Gulf. ~20% of the world's oil — and an even larger share of LNG — passes through daily. Any military incident here is instantly a global oil-price event.

    🌍 Strait of Malacca (Malaysia / Indonesia / Singapore)

    1,000 km corridor between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The busiest strait in the world by tonnage — ~30% of global trade and ~80% of China's and Japan's oil imports.

    💣 Bab-el-Mandeb (Yemen / Djibouti)

    The southern gate to the Red Sea / Suez. Only 29 km wide. Houthi attacks from November 2023 cut transits by ~50% and pushed most container traffic around the Cape of Good Hope.

    ⚓ Bosphorus (Turkey)

    31 km strait inside Istanbul connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. Critical route for Russian & Ukrainian grain and Caspian oil. Tight, winding, and subject to Turkish convoy rules under the Montreux Convention.

    🚢 Dover Strait (UK / France)

    The world's busiest shipping lane by vessel count — 400+ transits per day between the North Sea and the English Channel. Tightly traffic-separated by the UK and French coastguards.

    🗺 Taiwan Strait (Taiwan / China)

    180 km wide corridor between mainland China and Taiwan — ~240–260 transits a day, and nearly half the global container fleet passes through it each year. Military exercises around Taiwan instantly show up as reroutes east of the island.

    ⛲ Strait of Gibraltar (Spain / Morocco)

    The only sea link between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean — 13 km at its narrowest, ~130 through-transits daily plus constant Spain–Morocco ferry traffic. Everything bound for the Med, Suez, or the Black Sea from the Atlantic funnels through here.

    🛤 Cape of Good Hope (South Africa)

    Not a strait but the world's great detour: when the Red Sea route is disrupted, ships swing around Africa instead. Cape traffic surging while Suez drops is the clearest live signature of a rerouted global fleet (+10–14 days, ~$1M extra fuel per round trip).

    📈 Why watch all ten

    Roughly 80% of global seaborne trade passes through at least one of these chokepoints. Watching all ten at once — including the Cape reroute — is the single best real-time indicator of whether the world's supply chain is under stress.

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    ▸ About · FAQ · How it works [-]

    FAQ — Strait Watch

    What exactly is a "transit"?

    One transit = one vessel crossing the chokepoint once. A ship going north through Suez and then coming back south counts as two transits. Only commercial vessels broadcasting on AIS are counted — fishing boats, navy vessels, and dark-fleet tankers may be missed.

    Is the Strait of Hormuz open right now?

    The Strait of Hormuz has never been fully closed, but traffic can fall sharply during periods of tension between Iran and other states. In normal conditions roughly 90–100 commercial vessels transit daily. The live counter above shows the latest AIS-derived transit count versus the 12-month baseline — a large drop is the clearest real-time signal that shipping is being disrupted.

    How many ships pass through the Strait of Hormuz each day?

    In normal conditions about 90–100 commercial vessels transit the Strait of Hormuz per day, carrying roughly a fifth of the world's oil and about a quarter of its LNG. The exact figure changes daily — the Hormuz tile above shows the latest count from IMF PortWatch AIS data next to the 12-month average.

    How many ships pass through the Suez Canal per day?

    In a normal year the Suez Canal handles roughly 50 vessels per day. Since Red Sea attacks began in late 2023 many carriers have rerouted around the Cape of Good Hope, cutting Suez traffic well below that baseline. The Suez tile shows today's transit count versus the 12-month average, so you can see how far traffic has recovered.

    What is the current Red Sea shipping situation?

    Red Sea traffic through Bab-el-Mandeb and the Suez Canal fell dramatically after Houthi attacks on shipping began in late 2023, with many container lines diverting around Africa. Recovery has been gradual and uneven. The Bab-el-Mandeb and Suez tiles here show live transits against baseline — the fastest way to gauge whether shipping is returning to the Red Sea.

    What is the "baseline" I'm comparing against?

    The 12-month rolling average transit count for the same chokepoint — roughly what a normal day looks like. A reading 10% below baseline is noise. 25% below is worth watching. 40% below usually means a named disruption is in progress.

    Why these 10 chokepoints?

    These ten carry the overwhelming majority of seaborne trade — and include the Cape of Good Hope, the main detour route that surges whenever the Red Sea is disrupted. Others — the Danish Straits, the Kerch Strait, the Lombok Strait — matter regionally, but the ten shown here are where global supply-chain shocks originate and show up first.

    What happens if the Strait of Hormuz closes?

    A full closure would cut off roughly 20 million barrels of oil per day — about a fifth of global consumption — plus a quarter of the world's LNG, with no meaningful alternative sea route. Pipelines can bypass less than 10% of the flow. Oil prices would spike immediately and severely; that's why even partial disruptions at Hormuz move markets within minutes.

    How many ships pass through the Taiwan Strait each day?

    Roughly 240–260 commercial vessels transit the Taiwan Strait daily — one of the busiest waterways on Earth. Nearly half of the global container fleet passes through it each year. The Taiwan tile above shows the live AIS-derived count versus baseline — the fastest way to see whether military exercises or tensions are affecting traffic.

    Why does Cape of Good Hope traffic matter?

    The Cape is the main alternative when the Suez–Red Sea route is disrupted. When ships avoid Bab-el-Mandeb, Cape traffic surges — a rise at the Cape mirrors a drop at Suez, adding 10–14 days and ~$1M in fuel per round trip. Watching the Cape alongside Suez shows the reroute happening in real time.

    How current is the data?

    Live transit counts come from the IMF PortWatch project, which updates daily based on AIS (Automatic Identification System) data from satellites. If the live feed is temporarily unavailable, the app falls back to the published 12-month baseline so the dashboard still loads meaningfully — a banner will tell you which mode you're seeing.

    What should I actually do with this?

    It's a macro-watching tool, not a trading signal. If you ship cargo, run a fleet, hedge freight rates, follow commodity markets, or just want an early read on whether "things are okay out there" — two red pills here often precede headlines by a few days.

    Is my data private?

    Yes. The dashboard runs entirely in your browser and only fetches public IMF PortWatch data. No accounts, no cookies from this tool, no tracking beyond standard privacy-first SimpleAnalytics pageviews.