Public API — Strait of Hormuz Ship Monitor

What this site does

Monitors all commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow waterway between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman through which ~20% of global oil supply transits. Data is collected every 30 minutes from AIS (Automatic Identification System) transponders.

Key features

• Live ship positions in the Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman, and Strait of Hormuz
• Inbound/outbound crossing detection and statistics
• Ship type breakdown: tankers (VLCC, crude oil), cargo (bulk, container), chemical/product tankers
• 30-day historical crossing charts with category filtering
• Animated replay of ship movements (crossing ships and all-traffic views)
• Ship directory with search, sort, and full position history
• Live ship map page (/live-map): every vessel in the tracked area, headings, 7-day tracks, UKMTO attack reports
• 24-hour traffic replay page (/map-replay): ship movements through the strait, half an hour per step, by ship type
• Ship directory page (/ship-directory): every tracked vessel, searchable by name or MMSI, with position and crossing history
• Bab el-Mandeb page (/bab-el-mandeb): the Red Sea chokepoint — northbound/southbound crossings, tanker tonnage, ships in the strait, live map
• STS Watch (/sts, beta): suspected ship-to-ship oil transfers in the Gulf of Oman — loitering receiver tankers matched against tankers that went dark in the Persian Gulf, estimated barrels per month (upper bound), per-case tracks; method at /about#sts
• Monthly statistics pages (/stats, /stats/YYYY-MM): crossings, outbound tankers and estimated oil outflow per month
• Guides (/guides): tanker types, the shipping timeline since the closure, bypass pipelines, AIS jamming
• UKMTO attack reports (attacks only) marked on the live map and the replay, with the report text; source UKMTO, Open Government Licence
• Oil storage page (/storage): tracked inventories (EIA, PAJ, JODI, Eurostat), EIA STEO implied stock change, OECD cross-check
• Supply & demand page (/supply): production vs consumption, Gulf producers, US Persian Gulf imports, OPEC vs non-OPEC, regional demand (EIA STEO/PSM, daily)

Public JSON API endpoints

• GET /api/summary?hours=24 — Dashboard stats: ship counts, crossing totals
• Append ?format=csv to /api/crossings, /api/crossings/daily, /api/oil_export/daily, /api/gas_export/daily or /api/ships/daily for CSV
• GET /api/crossings?hours=24 — Recent strait crossings with ship details
• GET /api/crossings/by_type?hours=24 — Crossings grouped by ship category
• GET /api/crossings/daily?days=30 — Daily crossing counts by direction
• GET /api/ships — Active ships with current positions (latest poll)
• GET /api/ships/by_zone — Ship counts by zone and category
• GET /api/ships/directory — Searchable directory of all tracked ships
• GET /api/ships/daily?days=30 — Daily unique ship counts by zone
• GET /api/incidents — UKMTO incident reports (compact table format; attribution required)
• GET /api/bab/summary?hours=24 — Bab el-Mandeb card values: crossings by direction, oil barrels, gas tons, ships by zone
• GET /api/bab/crossings?hours=24 — Bab el-Mandeb crossings, same row shape as /api/crossings
• GET /api/bab/ships — Ships in the latest Bab el-Mandeb poll
• GET /api/bab/daily?days=30 — Bab el-Mandeb per-day crossings, tonnage and ship counts

Limits

• Every time window is capped at 30 days: hours at most 720, days at most 30. Larger values are reduced to the cap, not rejected.
• Ship history (/api/ship/history, /api/bab/ship/history) covers the last 30 days at most.
• Older periods are published as monthly statistics pages: /stats/YYYY-MM (every month since March 2026).
• Data changes every 30 minutes, so polling faster gains nothing; please keep request rates reasonable.

Data coverage

• Persian Gulf zone: lat 23.5–30.24, lon 47.36–56.15
• Gulf of Oman zone: lat 22.4–26.09, lon 56.3–60.89
• ~950 ships monitored per poll cycle
• Polls every 30 minutes, 24/7
• Ship positions are kept for 365 days (the last 30 in full, older ones compacted; history from March 2026 with a gap from 9 April to 19 May); crossings and monthly statistics are kept since tracking began (March 2026)

URL

https://hormuz.data-tracking.net/

Usage & terms

All endpoints return JSON over HTTPS and require no key or registration. Data may be reused with attribution under CC BY 4.0 for research and non-commercial use. Please keep request rates reasonable — the data only changes every 30 minutes, so there is nothing to gain from polling faster than that. Time windows are capped at 30 days (hours ≤ 720, days ≤ 30); larger values are reduced to the cap. For earlier periods see the monthly statistics.