🚢 Shipping Lanes — synthetic global trade flow
Watch synthetic vessels move along 30 major global shipping lanes (Suez · Hormuz · Malacca · Panama · Trans-Pacific · Trans-Atlantic · Cape of Good Hope). Vessels colored by type (container · tanker · bulk · RO-RO · LNG). Chokepoints labeled.
Honest scope: this page shows a synthetic demonstration of the world's
major shipping lanes — vessel positions are not real-time AIS. The lanes
themselves (origin / destination / chokepoint waypoints) are derived from publicly documented
trade statistics (UNCTAD Maritime Transport Review 2024 + Lloyd's List Top 100 Ports 2024).
For real-time AIS see the /trade directory (MarineTraffic, VesselFinder, FleetMon, UNCTAD PortCalls).
No order routing, no broker connection, no investment advice.
Vessel types
- Container
- Crude / Product tanker
- Dry bulk
- RO-RO (vehicles)
- LNG carrier
Chokepoints (orange labels)
- Suez Canal — ~12% global trade
- Strait of Hormuz — ~20% global oil
- Strait of Malacca — ~30% global container
- Panama Canal — ~3% global trade
- Bab el-Mandeb — Red Sea south entry
- Strait of Gibraltar — Atlantic ↔ Med
- English Channel — NW Europe trunk
- Bosphorus — Black Sea ↔ Med
- Cape of Good Hope — Suez bypass
- Sunda Strait — Aus → Asia
What this page does NOT do
- Does NOT show real-time vessel positions (no AIS feed).
- Does NOT predict shipping costs, freight rates, or commodity prices.
- Does NOT route orders, connect to brokers, or carry IB / affiliate links.
- Does NOT claim to represent every ship in the world — only 30 demo lanes.
- Does NOT depict actual customs records or B2B trade flow (see Panjiva / S&P Global for that — paid).
Stage 2 roadmap: a future iteration may overlay real AIS positions from AISStream.io (free WebSocket feed) via a Cloudflare Worker proxy. That stage will be labeled explicitly when live.