Top Ten Busiest Ports

Busiest Container Ports

3 November 2017

Imagine a port so busy it moves on average >1 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit) shipping container every second, 24 hours a day, 7 days per week. With a mind-boggling 37.13 million TEU shipped each year, China’s Shanghai International Port is the world’s busiest container port, with previous title holder, Singapore Port, runner-up at 30.9 million TEU.

To place some prospective around these figures, New Zealand's ports handle a total of just 1.83 million TEU annually. Even larger economies such Germany and the UK combined fail to exceed the individual volumes of Shanghai or Singapore.

TEU Volumes

Annual container handling volumes by TEU (2016):

Boasting 7 of the world’s top 10 busiest ports, China’s economic growth and subsequent port demand continues at a scale never seen before in human history.