Busiest container ports
Topic: International Trade: Patterns, Ports and the WTO · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
Busiest container ports are ranked by how many containers they handle. Containers are standard-sized steel boxes that carry most manufactured goods by sea. The top three are Shanghai, Singapore and Ningbo-Zhoushan. Most of the top ten are in China, including Shenzhen, Qingdao, Guangzhou and Tianjin, plus Busan in South Korea (Lloyd's List; verify current). The ranking matters because it shows that world manufacturing has shifted to East Asia.
Example
Shanghai, at the mouth of the Yangtze River on China's east coast, is the world's busiest container port. Outside East Asia, Jebel Ali in Dubai is the largest container port in West Asia, and Rotterdam in the Netherlands is the largest in Europe (verify current).
Don't confuse with
- Entrepot port: a port that collects goods from many countries and re-exports them, defined by what it does. A busiest-port ranking only measures how many containers pass through.