This is weirdly beautiful, like the maps of undersea internet cables that frequently come up here as well.

You can clearly see:

1) oil flowing out of the Persian Gulf from the Middle East to China

2) ships waiting to get through the Panama and Suez Canals

3) why people talk about “shipping lanes”. There are some obvious tracks everyone follows, because it’s the cheapest way from A to B (e.g. cape of good hope to straight of malacca).

4) why Singapore got to be such an important global hub.

5) why the houthis and the Somali pirates could cause such havoc

6) nobody goes in the southern ocean! (Why would they? Unless you’re bringing supplies to Antarctica…) a few ships drop down to go around Cape Horn but that’s it.

and so much more. I wish it included more up-to-date data…