Atlas · Plate II
Shortcuts of the sea
Twice in history a canal redrew the map of maritime distance. The melting Arctic may be doing it a third time.
Rotterdam → Yokohama
Melting sea ice opens Arctic passages that cut the classic Suez route by roughly a third.
via the Northern Sea Route13,584 km
via the Northwest Passage14,517 km · +7%
via Suez20,726 km · +53%
Stylized routes; great-circle distances summed over hand-digitized waypoints — illustrative, not navigational.
Related research: Breaking Away from Icebreakers (CEPII WP 2017-24), Trade Costs and the Suez and Panama Canals (CEPII WP 2016-29) and Domestic transport costs, Canada, and the Panama Canal (CEPII WP 2017-02).