Sea lane in the context of "Transpacific crossing"

The Strait of Malacca is a narrow stretch of water, 900 kilometres (560 mi) long and from 65 to 250 km (40 to 155 mi) wide, between the Malay Peninsula to the northeast and the Indonesian island of Sumatra to the southwest, connecting the Andaman Sea (Indian Ocean) and the South China Sea (Pacific Ocean). As the main shipping channel between the Indian and Pacific oceans, it is one of the most important shipping lanes in the world.

A thalassocracy or thalattocracy, sometimes also maritime empire, is a state with primarily maritime realms, an empire at sea, or a seaborne empire. Traditional thalassocracies seldom dominate interiors, even in their home territories. Examples of this were the Phoenician states of Tyre, Sidon and Carthage; the Italian maritime republics of Venice and Genoa of the Mediterranean; the Omani Empire of Arabia; and the empires of Srivijaya and Majapahit in Maritime Southeast Asia. Thalassocracies can thus be distinguished from traditional empires, where a state's territories, though possibly linked principally or solely by the sea lanes, generally extend into mainland interiors in a tellurocracy ("land-based hegemony").

The term thalassocracy can also simply refer to naval supremacy, in either military or commercial senses. The ancient Greeks first used the word thalassocracy to describe the government of the Minoan civilization, whose power depended on its navy. Herodotus distinguished sea-power from land-power and spoke of the need to counter the Phoenician thalassocracy by developing a Greek "empire of the sea".

A navy, naval force, military maritime fleet, war navy, or maritime force is the branch of a state's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions. It includes anything conducted by surface ships, amphibious ships, submarines, and seaborne aviation, as well as ancillary support, communications, training, and other fields.

The strategic offensive role of a navy is projection of force into areas beyond a country's shores (for example, to protect sea-lanes, deter or confront piracy, ferry troops, or attack other navies, ports, or shore installations). The strategic defensive purpose of a navy is to frustrate seaborne projection-of-force by enemies. The strategic task of a navy also may incorporate nuclear deterrence by use of submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Naval operations can be broadly divided between riverine and littoral applications (brown-water navy), open-ocean applications (blue-water navy), and something in between (green-water navy), although these distinctions are more about strategic scope than tactical or operational division.

The English Channel, also known as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates Southern England from northern France. It links to the southern part of the North Sea by the Strait of Dover at its northeastern end. It is the busiest shipping area in the world.

It is about 560 kilometres (300 nautical miles; 350 statute miles) long and varies in width from 240 km (130 nmi; 150 mi) at its widest to 34 km (18 nmi; 21 mi) at its narrowest in the Strait of Dover. It is the smallest of the shallow seas around the continental shelf of Europe, covering an area of some 75,000 square kilometres (22,000 square nautical miles; 29,000 square miles).

Archaic globalization is a phase in the history of globalization, and conventionally refers to globalizing events and developments from the time of the earliest civilizations until roughly 1600 (the following period is known as early modern globalization). Archaic globalization describes the relationships between communities and states and how they were created by the geographical spread of ideas and social norms at both local and regional levels.

States began to interact and trade with others within close proximity as a way to acquire coveted goods that were considered a luxury. This trade led to the spread of ideas such as religion, economic structures and political ideals. Merchants became connected and aware of others in ways that had not been apparent. Archaic globalization is comparable to present day globalization on a much smaller scale. It not only allowed the spread of goods and commodities to other regions, but it also allowed people to experience other cultures. Cities that partook in trading were bound together by sea lanes, rivers, and great overland trade routes, some of which had been in use since antiquity. Trading was broken up according to geographic location, with centers between flanking places serving as "break-in-bulk" and exchange points for goods destined for more distant markets. During this time period the subsystems were more self-sufficient than they are today and therefore less vitally dependent upon one another for everyday survival. While long-distance trading came with trials and tribulations, still so much of it went on during this early time period. Linking the trade together involved eight interlinked subsystems that were grouped into three large circuits, which encompassed the western European, the Middle Eastern, and the Far Eastern circuits. This interaction during trading was early civilization's way to communicate and spread a number of ideas that caused modern globalization to emerge and allowed a new aspect to present-day society.

The Mona Passage (Spanish: Canal de la Mona) is a strait that separates the islands of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean region. Along with the Windward Passage between Hispaniola and Cuba, the approximately 80 miles (130 km) wide Mona Passage connects the North Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean Sea, operating as an important shipping route between the North Atlantic and the Panama Canal. The passage is fraught with variable tidal currents created by the islands on either side of it, and by sand banks that extend out from both coasts.