As the third largest body of water in the world, the Indian Ocean has a mystique all its own, with an extraordinarily diverse history. The Indian Ocean waters cover an estimated 73.5 million square km, incorporating half the world's latitudes and seven of its time zones, along with 48 independent littoral and island countries consisting of 2.6 billion people – some 39 percent of the world's population. The early history of the Indian Ocean, especially with the development of human civilisation, is as diverse and rich as any terrestrial region on Earth. 'Turn a map of the world upside down and the Indian Ocean can be seen as a vast, irregularly-shaped bowl, bounded by the shorelines of Africa and Asia, the islands of Indonesia, and the coast of Western Australia,' wrote the historian Richard Hall. The area's significance, he continued, was as 'a centre of human progress, a great arena in which many races have mingled, fought and traded for thousands of years.'
For thousands of years, much of the commerce and inter-civilisational contact in the Indian Ocean was facilitated by Muslim, Indian and Chinese traders, who sailed in dhows and junks and populated the bazaars of key port cities. Until around 1700 the Indian Ocean's thriving seaborne trade was deemed the most significant in the world, with the exchange of silk and porcelain from China; spices from Southeast Asia; pepper, gems, pearls and cotton from India; incense and horses from Arabia and West Asia; and gold, ivory and slaves from East Africa. As a result of this extraordinary commercial and cross-cultural interaction, bustling ports emerged along the Indian Ocean littoral, in places such as Aden on the Red Sea, Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, Kilwa and Mombasa on the East African coast, Calicut on the western Indian coast, and the seaside port of Malacca astride the Malacca Strait.
Naval powers emerged during the 10th and early 11th centuries in order to secure influence over, access to, or control of this mammoth maritime commerce and its important trade routes. This included the Sumatran Buddhist kingdom of Srivijaya and the Hindu Chola Tamil kingdom of South India. During the Ming Dynasty, particularly from 1405-1433, China sent as many as seven Indian Ocean diplomatic-naval expeditions led by its legendary explorer Admiral Zheng He, who sailed as far as the Persian Gulf, Red Sea and East Africa. Similarly, the Ottomans, Persians (Safavids), Omanis and Mughals also developed navies, though these were largely confined to certain regions within the Indian Ocean, to protect their respective interests along the East-West trade route.
British lake
The search for new markets started to attract European powers, particularly after the voyage of the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama in 1497, who rounded South Africa and entered the Indian Ocean. Da Gama's voyage signalled the dawn of a new era of European encroachment, which would see European maritime powers dominate the Indian Ocean for centuries. The superior organisation, weapons, technology and shipbuilding capabilities of the Portuguese ensured them repeated success along India's western coastline against the Arab-Islamic navies, particularly at the battles of Cochin in 1503 and Diu in 1509. Within just a few decades, the Portuguese had rapidly expanded their influence throughout much of the Indian Ocean littoral, establishing a string of trading posts and fortified coastal hamlets in places such as Goa, Ceylon, Timor, Malacca, Mozambique, Mombasa, Aden, Muscat and Hormuz, enabling the Portuguese to dominate the lucrative spice trade.