History Main / ChokepointGeography

* In ''VideoGame/{{Diablo}} II'', the only way out of Khanduras (Act I) to the Desert of Aranoch (Act II) is through the Rogue's Pass, a narrow monastery pass through the mountains defended previously by the Sisters of the Sightless Eye and presently by the hordes of hell. Instead of having to go all the way through the monastery, there is a set of portculli that wagon caravans like Warriv's presumably take. The REAL mystery is how they got through the Underground Passage, a network of narrow, twisting caves just before the monastery.

* ''Film/ThreeHundred'' is based on the Battle of Thermopylae during the [[UsefulNotes/GrecoPersianWars Second Greco-Persian War]] where, making this an EnforcedTrope. In order to invade Green, the Persians have to go through the mountain pass of Thermopylae.

* On a more tactical level, Thermopylae Pass was what allowed a severely outnumbered Greek army to hold up and inflict severe losses on the invading Persians during the second invasion of Greece before being overrun, buying enough time for Athens to be evacuated before the Persians could capture it. The pass being so narrow in an era where most combat was hand-to-hand meant that the Persians could not capitalize on their superior numbers. This tactic was repeated a few meters away and about 2400 years later by ANZAC troops in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII during the Nazi invasion of Greece (though sedimentary disposition had increased the size of the pass, making it less effective as a defensive barrier).

Somewhat TruthInTelevision, in that geography sometimes conspires to put up natural traffic barriers that can only be conveniently bypassed at a few locations (mountain passes and bridges over gorges being the classic examples), and that as a result governments and rulers tend to put up [[BleakBorderBase border guard posts]], fortresses, and other types of traffic control points on them to keep out unwelcome visitors.

** the Neck is a narrow strip of swampland between the North and the rest of Westeros, impassable except for a single road guarded by the (ruined) castle Moat Cailin. Whoever controls Moat Cailin therefore controls all land traffic between the North and the South, very useful in wartime.

* TruthInTelevision, especially before the invention of air travel and still relevant in the maritime business. Specific examples:
** The Strait of Hormuz, which separate the Indian Ocean from the Persian Gulf (with major oil fields) -- sink a couple of vessels (or toss some mines) in there and you seriously damage the global economy as 20% of the world's oil passes through it annually.
*** In fact, this did happen during the Iran-Iraq war, where the Iranians mined the strait to prevent Iraqi tankers from passing through (which was effective for a while, up until the US navy engaged with the Iranians and sunk half their operational fleet). It's speculated that nowadays Iran can very seriously mine the strait again and cause naval damage in the event of a US-Iranian war.
** The Suez Canal was blocked for several years following the Six Day War of 1967. For a more recent example that hits nerds closer to home, [[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4070755.stm an accident in the Suez Canal in 2004 blocked a shipment of Playstation 2's heading for the UK holiday season.]] For an even ''more'' recent example, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Suez_Canal_obstruction an accident in 2021 brought things to a halt for several days and caused a major bump in the road to the global economy.]]
** The Khyber Pass, since time immemorial a chokepoint connecting Central Asia to South Asia.
** [[UsefulNotes/{{Panama}} The Panama Canal]] -- its construction saves several thousand miles and several months' worth of sailing around a notoriously treacherous Cape Horn around the southern tip of South America. Very useful historically for the United States, as with it naval ships could be transferred much more easily between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans as needed.
*** Historically speaking, the Panama Canal's dimensions have acted as a limit on ship size. The United States Navy has long been limited by its dimensions, with the ''South Dakota'' and ''Iowa'' class battleships having less than six inches of clearance on the sides. Similarly, the "Panamax" (Or, since 2016's lock expansion, "Neo-Panamx") specification denotes the upper size of commercial vessels that can fit. Modern American supercarriers are in the "post-Panamax" category of ships too large for the cannal.
** Singapore, a major sea transit hub in South-East Asia. It's basically filthy rich just from harbor taxes alone. The Malacca Strait in general sees huge amounts of maritime trade (pirates are ever-present threat), which is why China is funding the development of the new Kra Canal in Thailand.
** Gibraltar and its namesake Strait, as it connects the Mediterranean with the Atlantic. British control of it since the early 18th Century allowed it to exercise control over the trade through it and helps bottle up any potential invasion fleet from there sailing on the Isles.
** The Bosporus and Dardenelles. [[IstanbulNotConstantinople Byzantium/Constantinople/Istanbul]]'s location as a crossroads of trade both over land and by sea made it a very lucrative trading destination through history. Militarily, it also allowed its owner to severely restrict other countries' power projection. The current [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreaux_Convention Montreaux Convention]] governs what Turkey can and cannot do in regards to other nations' ships passing through -- during the UsefulNotes/ColdWar the US-allied government often used those terms to largely keep the Soviet Black Sea fleet within the Black Sea and not out in the eastern Mediterranean.
*** The Soviets, in turn, got around these legal restrictions with some [[LoopholeAbuse very creative totally-not-an-aircraft-carrier designs]].[[note]]The obstacle of being unable to get significant numbers of ships into the Mediterranean remained, though.[[/note]] They also turned the legal blockage back on the US on occasion -- since the treaty stipulates a limit on the total amount of tonnage that can traverse the strait at a given moment, the Soviets would often just leave a ship there in mid-transit to prevent the US or other NATO ships from using it to get a ship into the Black Sea, effectively turning it into a Warsaw Pact lake.
*** Proposals for a canal bypassing the Bosporus Strait dated back to the 16th century, each time abandoned. Into the 2010s and the 2020s, the canal has been approved to be built 30 kilometers west of Istanbul that it would bypass the Bosporus relieving congestion, able to charge tolls, divert dangerous cargo, and to bypass the Montreaux Convention allowing foreign naval vessels into the Black Sea.
** The Mohawk Valley in [[UsefulNotes/NewYorkState upstate New York]] was a vital target for both the British and the French during the UsefulNotes/SevenYearsWar, serving as one of the only easy ways to get from the East Coast to the Midwest. French control would've heavily restricted the growth of Britain's northern colonies, while British control would've confined France to Canada.[[note]]It wound up being a moot point anyway, as France lost all of her mainland North American colonies, Canada included, at the end of the war.[[/note]] Years later, in peacetime, it became a key factor in the state of New York's economic growth; at one point nearly 80% of American exports went through UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity because of the Erie Canal running through the valley, connecting the Midwest to the Hudson River.

** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'', your trip to Galbadia Garden takes you through a forest in a narrow mountain pass. As soon as you set foot in that forest, the second Laguna sequence in the game begins, forcing [[BagOfSharing what is effectively your party]] into a weird crystalline dungeon.

* Utterly averted in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyII''. Other than various islands, there's nowhere you can't go as soon as you leave the first town of the game (theoretically, at least, assuming you don't [[BeefGate get horribly murdered by enemies several levels above you the second you stray too far off the beaten path.]])

With that principle in mind, the {{VideoGameGeography}} of the game's [[{{Worldbuilding}} world map]] will be designed in such a way that one or more dungeons will lead to parts inaccessible by travel on foot. You may have to bypass a BeefGate at the end by defeating it in a BossBattle, at which point you can travel freely through the dungeon at your leisure (provided you can still handle the monsters that lurk within). The BonusDungeon is almost always exempt from this trope, since those are often placed in far out-of-reach locations, presumably to dissuade newbie adventurers from getting themselves killed after wiping their feet on the welcome mat.

With that principle in mind, the {{VideoGameGeography}} of the game's [[{{Worldbuilding}} world map]] will be designed in such a way]] that one or more dungeons will lead to parts inaccessible by travel on foot. You may have to bypass a BeefGate at the end by defeating it in a BossBattle, at which point you can travel freely through the dungeon at your leisure (provided you can still handle the monsters that lurk within). The BonusDungeon is almost always exempt from this trope, since those are often placed in far out-of-reach locations, presumably to dissuade newbie adventurers from getting themselves killed after wiping their feet on the welcome mat.

With that principle in mind, the [[VideoGameGeography}} and the {{Worldbuilding}} of the game's world map will be designed in such a way]] that one or more dungeons will lead to parts inaccessible by travel on foot. You may have to bypass a BeefGate at the end by defeating it in a BossBattle, at which point you can travel freely through the dungeon at your leisure (provided you can still handle the monsters that lurk within). The BonusDungeon is almost always exempt from this trope, since those are often placed in far out-of-reach locations, presumably to dissuade newbie adventurers from getting themselves killed after wiping their feet on the welcome mat.

With that principle in mind, [[VideoGameGeography the {{Worldbuilding}} of the game's world map will be designed in such a way]] that one or more dungeons will lead to parts inaccessible by travel on foot. You may have to bypass a BeefGate at the end by defeating it in a BossBattle, at which point you can travel freely through the dungeon at your leisure (provided you can still handle the monsters that lurk within). The BonusDungeon is almost always exempt from this trope, since those are often placed in far out-of-reach locations, presumably to dissuade newbie adventurers from getting themselves killed after wiping their feet on the welcome mat.

With that principle in mind, [[VideoGameGeography the [[{{Worldbuilding}} gsme's world map]] will be designed in such a way]] that one or more dungeons will lead to parts inaccessible by travel on foot. You may have to bypass a BeefGate at the end by defeating it in a BossBattle, at which point you can travel freely through the dungeon at your leisure (provided you can still handle the monsters that lurk within). The BonusDungeon is almost always exempt from this trope, since those are often placed in far out-of-reach locations, presumably to dissuade newbie adventurers from getting themselves killed after wiping their feet on the welcome mat.

With that principle in mind, [[VideoGameGeography the [[{{Worldbuilding}} world map]] will be designed in such a way]] that one or more dungeons will lead to parts inaccessible by travel on foot. You may have to bypass a BeefGate at the end by defeating it in a BossBattle, at which point you can travel freely through the dungeon at your leisure (provided you can still handle the monsters that lurk within). The BonusDungeon is almost always exempt from this trope, since those are often placed in far out-of-reach locations, presumably to dissuade newbie adventurers from getting themselves killed after wiping their feet on the welcome mat.

With that principle in mind, [[VideoGameGeography the world map will be designed in such a way]] that one or more dungeons will lead to parts inaccessible by travel on foot. You may have to bypass a BeefGate at the end by defeating it in a BossBattle, at which point you can travel freely through the dungeon at your leisure (provided you can still handle the monsters that lurk within). The BonusDungeon is almost always exempt from this trope, since those are often placed in far out-of-reach locations, presumably to dissuade newbie adventurers from getting themselves killed after wiping their feet on the welcome mat.

Somewhat TruthInTelevision, in that geography sometimes conspires to put up natural traffic barriers that can only be conveniently bypassed at a few locations (mountain passes being the classic example), and that as a result people tend to put up border guard posts, fortresses, and other types of traffic control points on them to keep out unwelcome visitors.

* The "Fulda Gap" of valleys in Hesse-Thuringen gained strategic relevance during the UsefulNotes/ColdWar. Thanks to geography, NATO planners saw three plausible avenues of attack for a Warsaw Pact offensive against NATO: Hesse/the North German Plain, the Fulda Gap cutting through central-southern West Germany, and up the Danube River through Austria. The USA drew two conclusions about their enemy's intentions: one was that the Soviets would naturally focus on defeating them by attacking through the Fulda gap so they could take the Rhein-Main Air Base and the West German capital. The other possibility was that the Warsaw Pact would launch a pincer attack with two thrusts, one on the north German plain and one through the Fulda Gap, and attempt to trap NATO forces in a pocket between them. Naturally, Warsaw Pact force deployments in East Germany encouraged these impressions as this would make the opening gambit of the actual offensive -- on the north German plain, to trap NATO forces in a pocket against the sea -- come as a surprise. The Soviets abandoned the idea of responding to NATO aggression with such an offensive under Gorbachev (having made no plans for starting an aggressive war, in accordance with Soviet ideological claims that there was no need to do so as Capitalism would crumble from within), and upon the end of the
UsefulNotes/ColdWar withdrew from East Germany entirely.

* ''Film/TheAdmiral2014''. Admiral Yi Sun-Sin is able to defeat the Japanese navy despite being vastly outnumbered because the Japanese take a shortcut around the Korean peninsula through the Myeongnyang Strait.

* ''Series/GameOfThrones'' (and its source material ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire''):
** the Neck is a narrow strip of swampland between the North and the rest of Westeros, impassable except for a single road guarded by the (ruined) castle Moat Cailin. Whoever controls Moat Cailin therefore controls all land traffic between the North and the South, very useful in wartime. This is similar to the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darién_Gap Darién Gap]], a similarly impassable area in Panama.
** [[https://gameofthrones.fandom.com/wiki/The_Twins The Twins]] is the only crossing point over the Green Fork river for hundreds of miles. It's controlled by House Frey, who never fail to exact their toll from travelers. The toll they demand from Robb Stark's army is an ArrangedMarriage between Robb and a Frey daughter. While this gains the Freys as allies, it has serious consequences when Robb backs out of the deal later on.

* In ''Series/GameOfThrones'' (and its source material ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire''), the Neck is a narrow strip of swampland between the North and the rest of Westeros, impassable except for a single road guarded by the (ruined) castle Moat Cailin. Whoever controls Moat Cailin therefore controls all land traffic between the North and the South, very useful in wartime. This is similar to the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darién_Gap Darién Gap]], a similarly impassable area in Panama.

* Used occasionally in ''VideoGame/BattleForWesnoth'', but downplayed or subverted as often as it's played straight thanks to TacticalRockPaperScissors. For example, "shallow water" tiles will heavily slow most units down as well as inflict a stiff penalty to their defense stat while "deep water" is largely impassible, forcing you to fight for control of single hex-wide "bridge" tiles... unless you have access to flying units or [[OurMermaidsAreDifferent merfolk]] (who actually get a terrain ''bonus'' from water tiles). Some Undead-faction units like zombies or skeletons can also use "deep water" tiles to become invisible thanks to their "Submerge" trait (which is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin), but this doesn't come up much in campaigns because it'd be a huge GameBreaker.

* The "Fulda Gap" of valleys in Hesse-Thuringen gained strategic relevance during the UsefulNotes/ColdWar. Thanks to geography, NATO planners saw three plausible avenues of attack for a Warsaw Pact offensive against NATO: Hesse/the North German Plain, the Fulda Gap cutting through central-southern West Germany, and up the Danube River through Austria. The USA drew two conclusions about their enemy's intentions: one was that the Soviets would naturally focus on defeating them by attacking through the Fulda gap so they could take the Rhein-Main Air Base and the West German capital. The other possibility was that the Warsaw Pact would launch a pincer attack with two thrusts, one on the north German plain and one through the Fulda Gap, and attempt to trap NATO forces in a pocket between them. Naturally, Warsaw Pact force deployments in East Germany encouraged these impressions as this would make the opening gambit of the actual offensive -- on the north German plain, to trap NATO forces in a pocket against the sea -- come as a surprise. The Soviets abandoned the idea of responding to NATO aggression with such an offensive under Gorbachev (having made no plans for starting an aggressive war, in accordance with Soviet ideological claims that there was no need to do so as Capitalism would crumble from within), and upon TheGreatPoliticsMessUp withdrew from East Germany entirely.

*** Historically speaking, the Panama Canal's dimensions have acted as a limit on ship size. The United States Navy has long been limited by its dimensions, with the ''South Dakota'' and "Iowa'' class battleships having less than six inches of clearance on the sides. Similarly, the "Panamax" (Or, since 2016's lock expansion, "Neo-Panamx") specification denotes the upper size of commercial vessels that can fit. Modern American supercarriers are in the "post-Panamax" category of ships too large for the cannal.

*** Proposals for a canal bypassing the Bosporus Strait dated back to the 16th century, each time abandoned. Into the 2010s and the 2020s, the canal has been approved to be built 30 kilometers west of Istanbul that it would bypass the Bosporus relieving congestion, able to collect tolls, divert dangerous cargo, and to bypass the Montreaux Convention allowing foreign naval vessels into the Black Sea.

** The Suez Canal was blocked for several years following the Six Day War of 1967. For a more recent example that hits nerds closer to home, [[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4070755.stm an accident in the Suez Canal in 2004 blocked a shipment of Playstation 2's heading for the UK holiday season.]]