Sea route
A sea route is the route of a navigable (often as short as possible) connection between ports that runs through oceans and seas . Sea lanes are traffic routes of seafaring .
Emergence
Sea routes enable trade over long distances. Given their immense security and strategic importance, they are the basis for the existence of all navies . They are regularly used ship routes across the seas . They have existed since the 3rd millennium BC. In the Middle East and North Africa, sea shipping has existed since around 6000 BC.
Christopher Columbus by chance and unknowingly found the continent of America , previously unknown in Europe , when he was looking for a sea route to India .
The routes of the individual sea routes were oriented towards the winds for the longest time, since sailing ships were used. Motor ships, which are mainly used in maritime shipping today, mainly only have to consider currents and weather hazards on their course. Typically, sea routes begin and end in seaports .
Major international sea routes
For Europe and North America, the North Atlantic is still by far the most important sea route.
The Northwest Passage connects Europe and the Far East on a great circle ; However, it is extremely difficult to navigate and not free of ice. In principle the same applies to the Northeast Passage . For trade in Russia , the development of Siberia and the exploration of the Arctic Ocean , the New Siberian Islands could be of enormous importance.
In densely populated Southeast Asia, the Malakka Strait is the strategic bottleneck. It is no coincidence that the international fight against piracy began there.
The way to India, Southeast Asia and Australia leads around the Cape of Good Hope . It is abbreviated by the Suez Canal . For the Pacific Ocean and the west coast of America, Cape Horn (and the Strait of Magellan ) has the same meaning as the Cape of Good Hope has for the Indian Ocean . The Panama Canal is so important that a second is to be built (by China).
Artificial sea routes
In order to shorten the distance between individual ports or regions for maritime shipping, or to prevent particularly accident-prone passages or to avoid taxes such as the Danish sound tariff, artificial sea routes were created in addition to the natural sea routes. Examples of such artificial sea routes are e.g. B. the Eider Canal , the Suez Canal , the Panama Canal or the Kiel Canal .
Maps and Globes
In 1920 Arthur Krause created the New Trade and Transport Globe .
In 2006 a series of maps was published to present China in terms of sea space. No fleet is currently being upgraded in a manner comparable to that of the Navy of the People's Republic of China .
See also
- Center of Excellence for Operations in Confined and Shallow Waters
- History of seafaring
- Ship sizes and waterways
- Maritime trade
- Waterway
literature
- François Bellec: Out and about on the oceans - the history of the great trade routes , translated by Christiane Schoelzel and Manfred von Sommer. Munich 2005.
- Roderich Ptak, Ralph Kauz: Asian sea straits - functions and history (c. 500 to 1700) . Munich 2015. ISBN 978-3922667186 .
- Ernst Baltrusch , Hans Kopp, Christian Wendt: Maritime power, maritime domination and antiquity . Franz Steiner Verlag , Stuttgart 2016. ISBN 978-3-5151-1431-8 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ www.tagesspiegel.de Sarah Kramer: More and more trade on the sea route , June 25, 2011; "As far as we know today, people have only been moving in ships in the sea since 6000 BC", Martin Rheinheimer, University of Esberg (Denmark). Accessed May 28, 2013.
- ↑ How pirates can be driven away (Die Zeit 2009)
- ↑ Angela Schottenhammer, Roderich Ptak (ed.): The perception of maritime space in traditional Chinese sources . Harrassowitz, Munich 2006. ISBN 978-3-447-05340-2 .
- ↑ Ben Schmidt: sapping Attention: Visualizing Ocean Shipping . April 9, 2012. Retrieved March 11, 2015.