Indian Ocean trade is vital for the global economy and has been described as the "cradle" for global trade. Traditionally connecting the western world to the eastern world since antiquity, long-distance maritime trade by South East Asian and South Asian, and Middle Eastern and later African ships has made it a dynamic zone of interaction between peoples, cultures, and civilizations stretching from Southeast Asia to East and Southeast Africa, and the East Mediterranean in the West, in prehistoric and early historic periods. Cities and states on the Indian Ocean rim focused on both the sea and the land. The ocean was historically called the "Mahodadhi", divided into the two seas Purvapayodhi (sunrise) and Apara (sunset). The Indian Ocean is critical for global trade and 50% of container traffic and 80% of global seaborne oil traverses the region.
The earliest long distance trade was by the sea-faring Austronesian peoples who settled in a vast swathe of coastal lands in the Indian Ocean from islands surrounding southern China such as Taiwan and Japan, to coastal areas of Maritime South East Asia, South Eastern India and Sri Lanka. These routes were later continued by South Asian, East Asian and European merchants such as the colonial trade routes of the Dutch East India Company. This trade continues into the modern era, with the region becoming a significant geopolitical asset competed for by China, India and other powers. The Indian Ocean has been described as the "cradle of globalisation.”
The Middle East has also been a major actor in the history of western Indian Ocean trade, connecting Africa with the Middle East and South Asia. Gulf ports have played a continuous role in connecting Europe to South Asia since the Hellenistic and Roman period. The disruption in the Middle East to the trade routes between Europe and India likely played a major role in the establishment of colonialism and the World Wars period in Europe, which can also be seen in the modern-era, such as disruption to shipping in the Red Sea and Strait of Hormuz in early 2026 due to the Middle East war, though conflicts are relatively rare in Indian Ocean outside West Asia and the Greater Middle East.
Eastern Indian Ocean
Austronesian
The maritime trade network in the eastern Indian Ocean was run by the Austronesian peoples of Maritime Southeast Asia, with evidence supporting trade networks being established by at least 3000 BCE. They established trade routes between East Asia (China, Japan and the Philippines) and coastal South Asia (South Eastern India and Sri Lanka), ushering an exchange of material culture (like catamarans, outrigger boats, lashed-lug and sewn-plank boats, and paan) and cultigens (like coconuts, sandalwood, bananas, sugarcane, cloves, and nutmeg); as well as connecting the material cultures of India and China. Activity in Japan is shown in the Yayoi period (3rd century BCE) as evidenced by the discovery of Indo-Pacific beads.This trade network possibly expanded to reach as far as Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, and also resulting in the Austronesian colonization of Madagascar by the first half of the first millennium AD. Spices (mainly cinnamon and cassia) were traded with East Africa using catamaran and outrigger boats and sailing with the help of the Westerlies in the Indian Ocean that likely passed through the Maldives and the Chagos Archipelago.
It continued up to historic times, later becoming the Maritime Silk Road and the European colonial trade routes East of the Suez. In modern days, the trade routes are still used between the Middle East and East Asia, through the major sea ports in Sri Lanka, Singapore and Indonesia to ship high value goods such as petroleum and Chinese wares.
Chinese travel
Chinese fleets under Zheng He crisscrossed the Indian Ocean during the early part of the 15th century. The missions were diplomatic rather than commercial, but many exchanges of gift and produces were made.
Japanese trade During the 16th and 17th century, Japanese ships also made forays into Indian Ocean trade through the Red Seal ship system.
Greater India Hindu-Buddhist period
The Satavahanas developed shipping ventures in Southeast Asia. The 8th century depiction of a wooden double outrigger and sailed Borobudur ship in ancient Java suggests that there were ancient trading links across the Indian Ocean between Indonesia and Madagascar and East Africa sometimes referred to as the 'Cinnamon Route.' The single or double outrigger is a typical feature of vessels of the seafaring Austronesians and the most likely vessel used for their voyages and exploration across Southeast Asia, Oceania, and Indian Ocean. During this period, between 7th to 13th century in Indonesian archipelago flourished the Srivijaya thalassocracy empire that rule the maritime trade network in maritime Southeast Asia and connecting India and China.
Western Indian Ocean
Ancient Middle Eastern
There was an extensive maritime trade network operating between the Harappan and Mesopotamian civilizations as early as the middle Harappan Phase (2600-1900 BCE), with much commerce being handled by "middlemen merchants from Dilmun" (modern Bahrain and Failaka located in the Persian Gulf). Such long-distance sea trade became feasible with the development of plank-built watercraft, equipped with a single central mast supporting a sail of woven rushes or cloth.
Several coastal settlements like Sotkagen-dor (astride Dasht River, north of Jiwani), Sokhta Koh (astride Shadi River, north of Pasni), and Balakot (near Sonmiani) in Pakistan along with Lothal in western India, testify to their role as Harappan trading outposts. Shallow harbours located at the estuaries of rivers opening into the sea allowed brisk maritime trade with Mesopotamian cities.
Recent archaeological study has highlighted the growing corpus of evidence supporting direct maritime contacts between bronze age Egypt and India via the Red Sea. Scholars such as Gregory Possehl have also proposed maritime activities between the Indus Valley Civilization and East Africa.
Hellenistic and Roman period
Trade between India and the Greek Ptolemaic Kingdom was started by Eudoxus of Cyzicus in 130 BCE. From Egypt, goods could be sent on to ports throughout the Mediterranean. The Kingdom's opening of Red Sea ports and improved knowledge of the seasonal monsoons resulted in a substantial increase in trade.
The consolidation of the administration of the Mediterranean basin under the Roman Empire led to the strengthening of direct maritime trade with India and the elimination of the taxes extracted previously by the middlemen of various land-based trading routes.Lach 1994: 13 Trade between the Roman Empire and India peaked during the first two centuries of the Common Era, facilitated by the peace and prosperity that arose beginning with the reign of Roman Emperor Augustus (27 BCE – 14 CE) and ending with the Antonine plague.
According to Strabo:
Strabo's mention of the vast increase in trade following the Roman annexation of Egypt indicates that the monsoon was known and utilized for trade in his time.Young 2001: 20 So much gold was used for this trade, and apparently recycled by the Kushan Empire (Kushans) for their own coinage, that Pliny the Elder (NH VI.101) complained about the drain of specie to India:"minimaque computatione miliens centena milia sestertium annis omnibus India et Seres et paeninsula illa imperio nostro adimunt: tanti nobis deliciae et feminae constant. quota enim portio ex illis ad deos, quaeso, iam vel ad inferos pertinet?" Pliny, Historia Naturae 12.41.84.
Roman ports The three main Roman ports involved with eastern trade were Arsinoe, Berenice and Myos Hormos. Arsinoe was one of the early trading centers but was soon overshadowed by the more easily accessible Myos Hormos and Berenice.
Arsinoe
The Ptolemaic dynasty exploited the strategic position of Alexandria to secure trade with the subcontinent.Lindsay 2006: 101 The course of trade with the east then seems to have been first through the harbor of Arsinoe, the present day Suez. The goods from the East African trade were landed at one of the three main Roman ports, Arsinoe, Berenice or Myos Hormos.O'Leary 2001: 72 The Romans repaired and cleared out the silted up canal from the Nile to harbor center of Arsinoe on the Red Sea.Fayle 2006: 52 This was one of the many efforts the Roman administration had to undertake to divert as much of the trade to the maritime routes as possible.
Arsinoe was eventually overshadowed by the rising prominence of Myos Hormos. The navigation to the northern ports, such as Arsinoe-Clysma, became difficult in comparison to Myos Hormos due to the northern winds in the Gulf of Suez.Freeman 2003: 72 Venturing to these northern ports presented additional difficulties such as shoals, reefs and treacherous currents.
Myos Hormos and Berenice Myos Hormos and Berenice appear to have been important ancient trading ports, possibly used by the Pharaonic traders of ancient Egypt and the Ptolemaic dynasty before falling into Roman control.Shaw 2003: 426
The site of Berenice, since its discovery by Belzoni (1818), has been equated with the ruins near Ras Banas in Southern Egypt. However, the precise location of Myos Hormos is disputed with the latig Abu Sha'ar and the accounts given in classical literature and satellite images indicating a probable identification with Quseir el-Quadim at the end of a fortified road from Koptos on the Nile. The Quseir el-Quadim site has further been associated with Myos Hormos following the excavations at el-Zerqa, halfway along the route, which have revealed ostraca leading to the conclusion that the port at the end of this road may have been Myos Hormos.
South Asian ports
The regional ports of Barbaricum (modern Karachi), Sounagoura (central Bangladesh) Barygaza, Muziris in Kerala, Korkai, Kaveripattinam and Arikamedu on the southern tip of present-day India were the main centers of this trade, along with Kodumanal, an inland city. The Periplus Maris Erythraei describes Greco-Roman merchants selling in Barbaricum "thin clothing, figured linens, topaz, coral, storax, frankincense, vessels of glass, silver and gold plate, and a little wine" in exchange for "costus, bdellium, lycium, nard, turquoise, lapis lazuli, Seric skins, cotton cloth, silk yarn, and indigo." In Barygaza, they would buy wheat, rice, sesame oil, cotton and cloth.
Barigaza Trade with Barigaza, under the control of the Indo-Scythian Western Satrap Nahapana ("Nambanus"), was especially flourishing:
Muziris
Muziris is a lost port city on the southwestern coast of India which was a major center of trade in the ancient Tamil land between the Chera kingdom and the Roman Empire. Its location is generally identified with modern-day Cranganore (central Kerala).George Menachery, Kodungallur City of St. Thomas, Azhikode,1987alias Kodungallur Cradle of Christianity in India, 2000 Large hoards of coins and innumerable shards of amphorae found at the town of Pattanam (near Cranganore) have elicited recent archeological interest in finding a probable location of this port city.
According to the Periplus, numerous Greek seamen managed an intense trade with Muziris:
Arikamedu The Periplus Maris Erythraei mentions a marketplace named Poduke (ch. 60), which G.W.B. Huntingford identified as possibly being Arikamedu in Tamil Nadu, a centre of early Chola trade (now part of Ariyankuppam), about from the modern Pondicherry.Huntingford 1980: 119. Huntingford further notes that Roman pottery was found at Arikamedu in 1937, and archeological excavations between 1944 and 1949 showed that it was "a trading station to which goods of Roman manufacture were imported during the first half of the 1st century AD".
Decline and legacy