The Strait of Hormuz ( Tangeh-ye Hormoz Maḍīq Hurmuz), Also called in Arabic: مَضيق باب السلام Madīq Bab Al Salam) which means “The door of peace”. Strait of Hormuz 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 lies the Musandam peninsula, shared by the United Arab Emirates and Musandam Governorate, an exclave of Oman. The strait is about long, with a width varying from about to . A third of the world's liquefied natural gas and almost 25% of total global oil consumption passes through the strait, making it a highly important strategic location for international trade. Etymology The opening to the Persian Gulf was described, but not given a name, in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a 1st-century mariner's guide: In the 10th17th centuries AD, the Kingdom of Ormus, which seems to have given the strait its name, was located here. Scholars, historians and linguists derive the name "Ormuz" from the local Persian word Hur-mogh meaning date palm. In the local dialects of Hurmoz and Minab this strait is still called Hurmogh and has the aforementioned meaning. The resemblance of this word with the name of the Zoroastrian god Hormoz (a variant of Ahura Mazda) has resulted in the popular belief that these words are related. Jodocus Hondius labels the Strait Basora fretum ("Strait of Basra") on his 1606 map of the Ottoman Empire. Navigation To reduce the risk of collision, ships moving through the Strait follow a Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS): inbound ships use one lane, outbound ships another, each lane being two miles wide. The lanes are separated by a two-mile-wide "median". To traverse the Strait, ships pass through the territorial waters of Iran and Oman under the transit passage provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Although not all countries have ratified the convention, most countries, including the U.S., accept these customary navigation rules as codified in the Convention. In April 1959 Iran altered the legal status of the strait by expanding its territorial sea to and declaring that it would recognize only transit by innocent passage through the newly expanded area. In July 1972, Oman also expanded its territorial