China Has the World’s Busiest Container Ports

Shanghai overtook Singapore in container traffic in 2010 to become the world’s busiest port. The rapid growth and emergence of Shanghai’s port underscores China’s sustained economic development over the past decade.

After handling 31.74 million TEUs of container traffic in 2011, this rose to 32.6 million in 2012. Singapore, the city-state located at the southern end of the Malacca Strait, handled 31.7 million TEUs of container traffic in 2012.

Hong Kong rounds off the top three busiest container ports in the world – in 2012, the city’s port oversaw a 23.1 million TEU container volume. Indeed, most of the world’s busiest ports can now be found in China – in addition to Shanghai and Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Ningbo-Zhoushan, Guangzhou, Qingdao and Tianjin all make an appearance in the top 10.

The first European port, Rotterdam, comes eleventh on the list with 11.9 million TEUs of container traffic while the United States is completely absent from the top 15. Los Angeles comes sixteenth after handling 8.07 million TEU’s of containers in 2012.