Luzon Strait

File:1876 Imray Blue-back Nautical Chart or Map of Taiwan (Formosa), China - Geographicus - Taiwan-imray-1876.jpg

Old map of the Luzon Strait

The Luzon Strait (Tagalog: Kipot ng Luzon, Template:Zh) is the strait between Luzon and Taiwan. The strait thereby connects the Philippine Sea to the South China Sea in the western Pacific Ocean.

This body of water is an important strait for shipping and communications. Many ships from the Americas use this route to go to important East Asian ports. Many submarine communications cables pass through the Luzon Strait. These cables provide important data and telephony services to: mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea. These cables also connect to Southeast Asia: Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam, and Thailand. The Luzon strait also hosts cables that span Southeast Asia and the Western coasts of the Americas, mainly: the United States, and Mexico.

Description

The Luzon Strait is approximately wide containing a number of islands belonging to the Philippines that are grouped into two: the islands comprising the province of Batanes and the Babuyan Islands, which are part of the province of Cagayan. The strait is divided into a number of smaller channels. The Babuyan Channel separates Luzon from the Babuyan Islands, which is separated from Batanes by the Template:Ill. Batanes is separated from Taiwan by the Bashi Channel. The Luzon Strait is the shortest possible shipping node for maritime traffic originating from the nations of Southeast Asia; combined with the collective Maritimes Southern East Asia of China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, who are all sharing the South China Sea and it's complex economic network, with maritime traffic reaching across South and North America, wherein the Luzon Strait is the most necessary chokepoint for these two centers of gravity for economic activity. The Luzon Strait in particular is the quickest sea lane possible, for ships travelling to and fro; Southern China and Southeast Asia, and; the Panama Canal plus South America.

Some of the largest ocean waves in the world, at times over 170 meters in height and stemming from tides and ocean currents, are found in the north of the strait. These waves or currents are underwater and rarely break the surface, thus posing no danger to shipping but are sometimes visible to satellites. The oscillation is largely prompted by a long north–south ridge which covers almost all of the strait, then amplified in the northern section by a second parallel ridge. The depth of the strait reaches the 3,500 m and 4,000 contours in north–south trenches in the middle and south-western edge.

History

The Luzon Strait was part of the Japanese invasion route during the Second World War. On December 8, 1941 (the same day as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, due to the International Date Line), forces of the Empire of Japan landed on Batanes. By December 10, they had occupied Camiguin de Babuyanes in the Babuyan Islands (not to be confused with the island-province of Camiguin off northern Mindanao) in a soon-abandoned attempt to establish a seaplane base, and on the same day landed at Aparri, Cagayan on Luzon.

Subsequently, during the Second World War, many US submarines hunted Japanese convoys passing through the strait on their way from the East Indies to Japan.