Can you beat them?
Maritime Chokepoints Quiz
Ten questions on the narrow waters that world trade depends on, from the Strait of Hormuz to the Panama Canal. Each answer comes with a short explanation.
- 10 questions
- About 3 minutes
- Medium
- Includes 2 maps
About this quiz
The quiz covers the straits and canals that carry most of the world's seaborne trade: Hormuz, the Bab el-Mandeb, Suez, Malacca, Panama, Gibraltar and the narrow entrance to the Baltic. It asks who controls each one, what happens when one is blocked, and how some of them made fortunes for whoever held the shore.
It suits anyone who follows oil, shipping or China in the news. The later questions draw on the events of 2023 to 2026, so a reader who knows only the textbook version of these straits will find them harder.
Topics in this quiz
Read up first
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Blog
The 8 maritime chokepoints in 2026: one closed, one half empty, one contested
World trade squeezes through eight narrow waters. In 2026, Hormuz is shut, the Red Sea is half empty, and the Panama Canal is a US-China battleground.
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Blog
Why is the Strait of Hormuz so hard to reopen?
Five months after Iran closed the strait, the strongest navy on earth still cannot get the oil moving. The reasons are mines, escort math, and insurance.
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Encyclopedia
Suez Canal
The artificial waterway across Egypt, opened in 1869, that linked the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and became the strategic lifeline of the British Empire.
