Start with geography
The short way through
Between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea, ships have essentially two options: through the Strait of Malacca, or a long detour around the Indonesian archipelago. The strait is far shorter, so an enormous amount of traffic funnels into it. For oil the figure is precise: the US Energy Information Administration puts 23.2 million barrels a day through the strait in the first half of 2025, about 29% of all maritime oil flows and the largest of any chokepoint on Earth.
It is also narrow — at its tightest around 2.7 kilometres of navigable width in the Phillips Channel near Singapore — and shallow in places. Concentration and constriction together are what make it strategically important: everyone wants to use it, and it is easy to disrupt.
On the map
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Sources for this chapter
- UNESCO · Melaka and George Town, Historic Cities of the Straits of MalaccaUNESCO World Heritage Centre · checked 2026-09-07
- World Oil Transit ChokepointsU.S. Energy Information Administration · checked 2026-09-07