Strait of Hormuz Strait of Hormuz The Strait of Hormuz ( "Tangeye Hormoz" ) is a strait between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. It provides the only sea passage from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean and is one of the world's most strategically important choke points. On the north coast lies Iran, and on the south coast the United Arab Emirates and Musandam, an exclave of Oman. At its narrowest, the strait has a width of . About 20% of the world's petroleum (about 35% of the petroleum traded by sea) passes through the strait, making it a
Persian Gulf naming dispute the head of the Persian Gulf. This coincided with the early mapmaking efforts of Gerard Mercator, whose 1541 terrestrial globe attempts to give the most up-to-date information, naming the gulf "Sinus Persicus, nunc Mare de Balsera" ("Persian Gulf, now Sea of Basra"). However, on his world map of 1569, the name is changed to "Mare di Mesendin" (after the peninsula Ra's Musandam, in modern-day Oman), while his rival Abraham Ortelius, for the world atlas of 1570, opted for "Mare El Catif, olim Sinus Persicus" (after the Arabian port of Al Qatif), but labelled the entrance to the gulf the present-day