Submitted by Taps Coogan on the 6th of December 2017 to The Sounding Line.

The following interactive map from MarineTraffic.com shows the position of virtually every commercial naval vessel in the world (800 million positions per month). In addition to being visually impressive, the map is an interesting way to visualize the flow of people and goods around the world: where the hot spots are and where they are not.

Ships are color coded by type:
Green = Cargo Ship
Red = Tanker
Purple = Pleasure Vessel
Blue = Passenger Vessel
Cyan = Tug or Special Vessel
Orange = Fishing

The interactive map cannot be embedded here at The Sounding Line, so click here or on the picture below to view the map. There is a control bar on the left hand side of the map that allows you to add some additional features. Try clicking on ‘Density Map’ to see the most popular routes and ports.

Some observations:
As far as I can tell, the most heavily trafficked region in the world is the English Channel and North Sea. There may be specific ports or straights that have higher traffic, but as an overall region, the waters between England, France, Belgium, and The Netherlands seem to be the busiest.

There is quite a lot of fishing going on everywhere (orange ships), but Iceland stands out as having a particularly high percentage of fishing vessels in its waters.

And of course, Florida and the Caribbean appear to have the highest percentage of ‘pleasure vessels’ (purple) as well as quite a lot of oil tankers (red) en route to the Gulf Coast.

If you are interested in seeing the value of the trade between all the world’s countries, check out this post for another great interactive map.

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