Shippensburg, Pa. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) –The Strait of Hormuz in World History & the Present Crisis
Brian Ulrich 10/10/2026
During the past seven months, the world has seen the significance of the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial chokepoint not only for oil, but natural gas, fertilizer, food for the Gulf states, and other industrial materials. That strait actually takes its name from a city and kingdom which once dominated the strait and the trade between the Persian Gulf and wider Indian Ocean. The history of that Kingdom of Hormuz can help us understand elements of what is happening now and what may come next.
A port called Harmozeia was known to the Greeks in the days of Alexander the Great. In the early Islamic centuries, from the conquests of the 600’s and with increasing mentions after 1000, the port city of Hormuz at or near modern Minab, the same place where on the first day of the current war, the United States struck a girls’ elementary school, killing 120 students and dozens of others.
During the 1200s, Hormuz was frequently threatened by Central Asian nomads who entered Iran as part of the Mongol conquests led by the successors of Genghis Khan. Because of this, around 1300, the ruler of Hormuz moved the city to the island which bears the name “Hormuz” today. This island location gave it a wide natural moat which protected it from political turmoil on the mainland.
Also during the 1200s, Hormuz began taking territory along the coast of what is now Oman. Today, negotiating passage through the Strait can involve passing through Omani rather than Iranian waters. Hormuz, however, came to control both sides, with a significant second city at Qalhat, today an archaeological site outside of the modern Omani port of Sur. This allowed it to monopolize passage between the Persian Gulf and the rest of the Indian Ocean world.
At its height, Hormuz had a population of 50,000, and was known as a wealthy trade emporium with merchants from throughout much of the Eastern Hemisphere and any product one might desire. It maintained its dominance with its navy, and sought to restrict ship-building materials to potential rivals.
Brian Ulrich. The Medieval Persian Gulf. Arc Humanities Press 2024. Click here to buy.
In 1498, the Portuguese entered the Indian Ocean, and in 1515 seized control of Hormuz, though leaving its ruling dynasty in place. The Portuguese ambition was to control all Indian Ocean trade by controlling all the choke points, of which Hormuz was one. They ruled the island until 1622 until a Persian ruler named Shah Abbas both lured and pressured the British East India Company into being his navy in taking the island. Shah Abbas then developed a fishing village into the port of Bandar Abbas, literally “Port of Abbas,” on the main near Hormuz and west of Minab, as the emporium of the strait. Hormuz, however, continued to have an important fortress, and in 1718, Oman tried and failed to capture it as part of seeking to control Gulf trade. Today the island has only a few thousand inhabitants.
What can the history of the city of Hormuz teach us about control of the Strait of Hormuz today?
First, imposing conditions traders will see as unreasonable will simply lead to their seeking alternate routes. When Hormuz was at its height as an independent kingdom in the 1400s, most merchants simply paid a flat 10% of customs dues. Those from regions of Iran to which it was closely connected paid 5%. Under the Portuguese, however, other fees appeared, such as one for piracy suppression and others for weighing bulk goods. An estimate from around 1580 is that Portuguese merchants were now paying 11%, and all others close to 15%, in customs.
These higher fees and increased bureaucracy even for transiting goods led many merchants to seek alternate routes, sometimes other ports around the Gulf, often overland caravan connections that bypassed the Gulf altogether. Throughout the 16th century, the Portuguese played a balancing act of trying to find new ways to extract revenue from the trade without driving it away.
Today, we see the same thing happening. Much of the oil transit trade through the Strait has been diverted to pipelines, truck convoys, and/or shuttle tankers rather than the massive supertankers used normally. These workarounds are less efficient, and developing proper alternative infrastructure would be a matter of years. However, mere fact that instability has been introduced into the equation commercial actors will look to build resilience into their supply chains and transport routes. At least in the medium term, Iran’s ability to threaten Hormuz is a wasting asset, a fact which may contribute to the government’s determination to institutionalize their control.
The threat of instability in the Strait of Hormuz owes a lot to the ease for disrupting it in modern warfare, when drones strikes are enough to create the threat that threatens lives, cargoes, and sends insurance rates soaring. With long range weapons and alliances, attacking alternate routes is also easier than it historically has been.
This is a contrast to the logistical preparations found in an earlier era of warfare over the Strait. Although Secretary of Defense (War?) Pete Hegseth believes manliness is the key to military effectiveness, military leaders since ancient times have focused on logistics, and in the Strait of Hormuz, supplying troops with water was both critical and complicated. The Portuguese fortress at Hormuz had two vast water cisterns capable of holding thousands of gallons, as well as several other cisterns added over the years. In 1718, before laying siege to the fortress of Hormuz itself, the Omanis captured the island of Qeshm, source of most of its water. In another episode from that war, they raided the city of Bandar Abbas, primarily shooting up water canisters that the Iranians had been hoping to use to relieve the defenders.
This potential for disruption threatens not only shipping through the Strait, but all Hormuz’s successors as global business hubs in the Gulf. At the height of conflict, Dubai, Doha, Kuwait City, and other points in the eastern Arabian Peninsula were attacked by Iran. The reason for this was doubtless their hosting U.S. bases and influence with the U.S. and Israel, but a strategic impact could have been to create an air of instability around them. And this, too, has precedent in Gulf history, as would-be rising emporia often harassed their predecessors militarily precisely so the traders would seek somewhere more secure. As the conflict in the Gulf continues, how the GCC states establish security is another lasting thread.