The Logistics of Global Trade & Commerce
Smooth Flow of Goods & Merchandise

Top 50 Container Ports in The World

Indicators of an Economies Trade Potentials

Top Container Ports in The World Capable of Handling the Super Large Liner Container Ships.

Large Capacity and Super Busy Container Ports in a country are a strong indicator of the country’s real economic potentials. With this perspective, we want to know about the Top Container Ports in the world—their locations and the capacity.

Bulk of the world trade in goods—more than 90% of it, is facilitated by the maritime shipping. Very large volume cargo / container ships, operated by the Liner Shipping companies, carry the bulk of this haul around the world. These bulk haulers run on a fixed – normally weekly, schedule and on a fixed ocean route.

Liner ships have tremendous cargo carrying capacity—they can carry several warehouses-worth of goods. Some of the new generation vessels are capable of carrying as much as 20,000 TEU cargo (TEU stands for ‘Twenty foot Equivalent Unit’ – it is a volume measure for the cargo container capacity.).

Many container ships can transport up to 9,000 containers of goods and products on a single voyage. Similarly, on a single voyage, some car carrier ships can handle more than 7,600 cars.

It is a very large cargo carrying capacity.

And, there are more than 6,000 ships, mostly container ships, operated by the liner shipping companies. The Global container shipping volume in 2018 was 146.4 million TEU. In tonnage measure, the global seaborne volume in 2017 was 10.7 billion tons [Source: UNCTAD].

It is a very large amount of cargo moving on the Ocean Liner ships.

Busy Container Ports & Freight — World’s Top Container Ports can handle Hundreds of Millions Tons of cargo.

To accommodate and efficiently handle the docking, loading, and unloading of such large capacity ships in large numbers, a port must have to be super giant in all logistical dimensions; size, equipments, hardware and software, and other all the other associated facilities. These ports require a lot of resources, skills, capital, and time to build and operates at a super efficient level.

Thus, very large scale shipping ports capable of handling such a large volume of cargo give an insight into the trade activities and potential of a country’s economy.

Countries that have such large scale busy shipping ports also tend to be the large scale economies in the world. With this perspective, knowing the Top Shipping Ports in the world helps identifying the largest trading countries in the world.

Here, we have compiled the list of Top 50 Container Ports in the World to present a perspective on the respective economies of the world.

Top 50 Busiest Container Ports in the World

Rank	Port	Volume 2016 (Million TEU)	Volume 2017 (Million TEU)	Volume 2018 (Million TEU)	Website
1	Shanghai, China	37.13	40.23	42.01	English Chinese
2	Singapore	30.90	33.67	36.60	English
3	Shenzhen, China	23.97	25.21	27.74	Chinese
4	Ningbo-Zhoushan, China	21.60	24.61	26.35	English Chinese
5	Guangzhou Harbor, China	18.85	20.37	21.87	English Chinese
6	Busan, S Korea	19.85	20.49	21.66	English Korean Chinese Japanese
7	Hong Kong, China	19.81	20.76	19.60	English Chinese
8	Qingdao, China	18.01	18.30	18.26	English Chinese
9	Tianjin, China	14.49	15.07	16.00	English China
10	Jebel Ali, Dubai	15.73	15.37	14.95	English Arabic
11	Rotterdam, Netherlands	12.38	13.73	14.51	English Dutch Deutsch Chinese
12	Port Klang, Malaysia	13.20	13.73	12.32	English Bahasa Malaysia
13	Antwerp, Belgium	10.04	10.45	11.10	English Nederlands Chinese
14	Kaohsiung, Taiwan, China	10.46	10.27	10.45	English Chinese
15	Xiamen, China	9.61	10.38	10.00	Chinese
16	Dalian, China	9.61	9.70	9.77	English Chinese
17	Los Angeles, US	8.86	9.43	9.46	English
18	Tanjung Pelepas, Malaysia	8.28	8.38	8.96	English
19	Hamburg, Germany	8.91	8.86	8.73	English Deutsch Chinese
20	Long Beach, US	6.80	7.54	8.09	English
21	Laem Chabang, Thailand	7.22	7.78	8.07	English Thai
21	Keihin Ports, Japan	7.61	7.98	N/A	English Japanese Chinese Español
22	Tanjung Priok, Jakarta, Indonesia	5.51	6.09	7.64	Select language at site
23	New York-New Jersey, US	6.25	6.71	7.20	English
24	Colombo, Sri Lanka	5.73	6.21	7.05	English
25	Yingkou, China	6.08	6.28	6.50	English Chinese
26	Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam	5.99	6.16	6.33	English Vietnamese
27	Bremen,Germany	5.49	5.51	5.42	English Deutsch
27	Hanshin Port, Japan	5.02	5.22	N/A	English Japanese
28	Manila, Philippines	4.52	4.82	5.05	English
29	J. Nehru Port, India	4.51	4.83	5.05	English Hindi
30	Piraeus, Greece	3.73	4.15	4.91	English Elliniká
31	Algeciras, Spain	4.76	4.39	4.77	English Español Français
32	Lianyunguang, China	4.70	4.72	4.75	Chinese
33	Tokyo, Japan	4.25	4.50	4.57	English Chinese Korean Japanese
34	Mundra, India	4.80	4.24	4.44	English
35	Savannah, US	3.64	4.05	4.35	English
36	Jeddah, Saudi Arabia	3.96	4.15	4.12	English Arabic
37	Santos, Brazil	3.60	3.85	4.12	Português
38	Rizhao, China	3.01	3.24	4.00	English Chinese
39	Colon, Panama	3.26	3.89	3.89	Español
40	Felixstowe, UK	4.10	4.30	3.85	English
41	Seattle-Tacoma, US	3.62	3.70	3.80	English
42	Dongguan, China	3.64	3.91	3.50	Chinese
43	Tanger Med, Morocco	2.96	3.31	3.47	English Français
44	Barcelona, Spain	2.23	2.97	3.42	Select language at site
45	Vancouver, Canada	2.92	3.25	3.40	English Français
46	Salalah, Oman	3.32	3.94	3.39	English
47	Fuzhou, China	2.66	3.01	3.34	Chinese
48	Marsaxlokk, Malta	3.08	3.15	3.31	English
49	Nanjing, China	3.08	3.17	3.23	Chinese
50	Cai Mep, Vietnam	2.56	3.07	3.20	English
Rank	Port	Volume 2016 (Million TEU)	Volume 2017 (Million TEU)	Volume 2018 (Million TEU)	Website

[Source of Data: World Shipping Council]

元 $ € ¥ ₿

Information

Reports & Analysis

To Help Evaluate

The Potentials For

Business

&

Investment

In an Interconnected

World

The Belt and Road Initiative & Made in China 2025

Riding high on the fast tracks of the Belt and Road Initiative, Made in China 2025 is rapidly making inroads into the countries... Fierce competition from Chinese companies...
MIC 2025 || The Changing Landscape of Chinese Economy

It was in 2015 that China unveiled its Made in China 2025 (MIC 2015) project. Since then, Chinese economy is metamorphosing and changing at a breakneck pace...
Top Freight Forwarders by Country

Large scale ‘local area’ Freight Forwarders listed here, through their contacts and arrangements, also provide services on a global scale. Their main strength though lies in...
Top Global Freight Forwarders

Most of the Top Global Freight Forwarders listed here serve all the major ports across the Globe, and, through relationships with their business partners, also provide a full suite of...
Glossary: Shipping, Freight, & Supply Chain Logistics

Like any other professional field, the shipping/freight industry has its own unique set of terminology—A rather extensive and complex one. Here we have compiled the Glossary of the most useful...
Global Foreign Direct Investment—Inward Flow

A comprehensive and historical Global FDI Inward-Flow Data spanning the period of 2000—2018. The data is compiled by grouping and associating a variety of economies together; by the state of...
Chinese Economy | A New Phase

The new phase of economy in China is an opportunity for the businesses. The emphasis is now on raising the living standards of masses, implementing supply-side reforms, and opening up...
Top 50 Container Ports in The World

Large Capacity & Super Busy Container Ports in a country are the pointers of country’s economic potentials...Bulk of the world trade in goods—more than 90% of it...
Supply Chain | Definition and Objectives

Supply Chain can be viewed as a network connecting a business to its suppliers and distributers to facilitate the production, processing, and distribution of its products to the consumers. It incorporates...
Global Business | Supply Chain & Logistics

With the technology—and global eCommerce platforms like Ali Baba, JD.com, Tancent, Kaola, Lazada, WooCommerce, VTEX, and Shopify etc, it is easier to sell products and services Globally.
Shipping Logistics | The Role of Service Providers

The logistics of getting the goods delivered to faraway destinations—especially to foreign markets, is a complex business. It requires the services of outside entities to...
Freight Forwarders | Role in Global Commerce

Freight Forwarders specialize in taking care of the entire process for their shippers | from warehousing to the shipping of their merchandise. They act as an agent and intermediary...
Real GDP | Nominal GDP vs GDP PPP

In evaluating and analyzing global investment opportunities and, also in the business decision making process, we need to know the actual comparative state of the economies of various countries and...
GDP—Computing Methodologies

With the perspective of charting course for the expansion of business or investment, an analytical review of the ‘real value’ of a nation’s/region’s GDP is essential. To this end, an understanding of the methodologies used in...
New Global Business Order—The Global Information Stage

Whatever the business be, it has to be ready to play on the Global Stage. It is the global arena. The Supply-and-Demand chain is global. ..There is no business that can be considered as purely a...
Global Real GDP Growth Rate—And Forecast

Real GDP provides an inflation-adjusted measure that reflects the true value of all goods and services produced by an economy in term of real value of...
Foreign Direct Investment Inward Flow in The US—A Global Perspective

The Inflow of FDI in the U.S. was up by US $50 Billion in the 3rd quarter of 2019. FDI plays an essential role in the economic growth, creating jobs, and driving exports...The tables present...
US Gross Domestic Product: 2019—By Quarters

Real US GDP increased at an annualized rate of 2.1 percent in the 3rd quarter of 2019—that was up from the second quarter. Real gross domestic income (GDI)...
Foreign Direct Investment—Impact and Analysis

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) plays an important role in the development and growth of any country’s economy - especially the developing countries. But, in actual practice...
Foreign Direct Investment and Business in China

China is establishing itself as the Model Destination for FDI inflow and a hub for corporate relocation and R&D...
US Global Trade & Top Trading Partners | Year-to-Date

Since hitting the peak in November 2018, U.S. global trade deficit in goods and services has been on the decline. But, the declining trends in both Imports and exports...
The Growth of Mobile Payments and Virtual Banking—A Global Perspective

Mobile Payments, Virtual Banking, and other modes of mobile transactions - both at consumer and commercial level, are growing globally at an ultra fast pace — more so in China and Asia Pacific and...
Belt and Road Initiative—Objectives & Achievements

As of the end 2019, the BRI — a project to interlink the global economies with China, includes 140 countries—encompasing more than 2/3 of the world’s population. The trade on BRI is...
US Trade in Goods with China

In 2019 US imports from China dropped more than 12.5 percent to US$456 billion (Source: United States’ Census Bureau ) while China’s imports from the US dropped to US$122.7 billion...
The WIN-WIN Business Model

Humans by nature - or by need, are traders. We trade our work, services, produce, or products for money. Then, we exchange that money for the goods and services that we need. Any excess/leftover money is either directly invested or deposited in the banks—thus, making the money to recirculate in the economy again.