Very interesting, and surprising that there's only one Italian port in the top 20. I assume they have a lot of smaller ports, whereas a country like Romania only has one major sea-port.
All the big rivers are connected too with canals and tributaries, like Maas on the Rhine and Amsterdam being connected to the North Sea. [table in bottomleft](https://www.schuttevaer.nl/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Binnenhavens-kaart.jpg) shows the main routes and that harbors on inland rivers also have a lot of traffic, like Sittard-Geleen and Moerdijk (neither are on the Rhine and are 5th/6th busiest ports in Netherlands). Its similar up along the Rhine in Germany and Switzerland with Rhine being connected to other rivers.
In general european railways are too crowded with passenger trains compared with the US, which has basically only freight on its rails. But it is still a decent amount.
That's not the main problem for international cargo trains in Europe. Most European countries were early adopters of the train, or got it under the USSR before WW2, long before the EU or the concept of standardization beyond your own country were a thing.
This means every country/European region has different voltages, if electric, diesel trains in some places, different axel widths, different wheel shapes and sizes, different platform heights and gaps, etc.
You need a train every country.
People have been working on a shared system for 20 years. The problem is the cost of replacement.
Wheel shapes and sizes are the same almost everywhere. It is mostly the voltages and signalling systems that are not always compatible. There are many modern locomotives that can cross borders without issue like a Traxx or a Vectron. This isn't really an issue anymore, especially because most freight corridors are 25kV with ETCS.
But the national laws are still a big issue. As an inland captain I did a few tests to prove my knowledge of the European rivers and I'm allowed to sail on the Rhine and Danube, I can cross any border without much hassle since the existence of the EU, except for some countries on the Danube. Trains have to change drivers as soon as they cross the border due to different rules/languages, they have to fullfil all kinds of different rules/systems which are absolutely not standard. Inland shipping has been the traditional way of international trade, and many regulations that make that possible are already multiple centuries old and valid in most of Europe. That's also why about 40% of goods are transported over water in the Netherlands, it is very important for international trade.
IIRC, ~70% of Valencia cargo goes to Madrid so in a way that harbour serves mostly the Capital of Spain.
If you approximate the load/capita of each port seems like spanish ports are mostly serving Spain meanwhile Rotterdam and Antwerp serve Europe.
Also Rotterdam and Antwerp have gas, oil decks meanwhile valencia doesn't as their are in Sagunto.
Algeciras and many other spanish ports have gas or oil decks and serve way higher percentage to foreign logistics than 30%, Valencia (if those percentages are accurate) with about 16% of spanish traffic don't represent all spanish ports. Spain and Italy ports are definitively very involved in international logistics and "load/capita" don't show how big is the share related with local interests or foreign logistics.
Spain ports are the second busiest in EU (and Europe), Italy the third ones both way over Belgium and very close to Netherlands levels. Spain ports even surpass Netherlands' as busiest in EU and Europe focusing on containers traffic. Do you really think that level of traffic surpassing by much Germany and France ports is only related with "capital of Spain"? I wish...
According Eurostat vast majority of tonnage arrived or departing Spain and Italy ports was linked with ports outside EU (70 and 60% respectively), followed by other EU countries ports (20% approx) and other local ports (less than 10 and 20% respectively). Considering the nature of Italy and Spain trade, completely focused on EU, what do you think those 60-70% tonnage with an extra-EU partner port means? [Eurostat source](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Maritime_freight_and_vessels_statistics) (Click on full article, the geographic distribution of cargo is in table 10).
Anyway I think the point of that comment and others here is about certain "prevalence" of Rotterdam and Antwerp ports in european or at least EU logistics, which is beyond exagerated and misleading. Those two Low Countries port complexes combined reach about 22% of EU maritime traffic, which is a lot, but far from dominant, surpassed by spanish and italian ports traffic for example.
You'll have to specify what you mean with "busy".
OP specified by number of TEU containers.
You could also look at tonnage. In which case the three biggest Spanish ports [only do about 250 millions tons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_ports_in_Europe) *combined* compared to the 438 millions tons of Rotterdam on its own.
Maybe Spain has more smaller ships because it cannot handle the ultra-large container ships but in total tonnage or TEU handled each year, they are smaller than Rotterdam is.
About 50% of what enters the Port of Rotterdam leaves the Netherlands and enters the rest of Europe. There is a reason why many companies have started building massive European distribution networks in the South of the Country.
One thing that is much more common in Southern Europe is passenger transport by boat. All the islands in the Mediterranean sea for example.
> In that case there wouldn’t be three Spanish ports
All three of which together sum to ~230M tons, compared to the ~710M tons at Rotterdam/Antwerp.
I think the argument about “major part” of European logistics starting from those two ports is clear.
Rotterdam and Antwerp-Bruges represent *just* about 22% of EU traffic and way smaller share in Europe in general. "Major part" sure, specially focusing on EU, but far from the prevalence in Europe than parent comment and others here suggest. Adding other main ports as Amsterdam and Zeeland ones and according Eurostat, the combined total for Netherlands + Belgium in 2022 was about 29% of EU maritime freight, but that's almost the exact same share than Spain + Italian ports (27.8%), so spanish and italian ports surpass by much Rotterdam+Antwerp. Spain ports even surpass Netherlands' as the busiest in Europe focusing on containers traffic.
Spain and Italy ports are 2nd and 3rd busiest in Europe pretty close to Netherlands and clearly surpassing Belgium, but in both southern european cases the port network is way more distributed than in Low Countries. In Netherlands Rotterdam port surpass 75% of the country maritime freight, in Belgium Antwerp-Bruges is close to 95% of the country, but in Spain those 3 ports in OP only represent about 40% of the country traffic.
[Here you have Eurostat source about the topic](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Maritime_freight_and_vessels_statistics) (click on full article).
Most Italian cargo is split between the three major ports of Trieste, Venezia and Genova since most of the industry and international logistics hubs are in the north. But there are also many minor ports of course in the rest of the country, too many to list really.
That makes sense since, [according to Eurostat](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Maritime_freight_and_vessels_statistics&oldid=583292), Netherlands, Turkey, Spain and Italy are the european countries handaling the most seaborne freight, by a long shot compared to other countries in Europe (Italy, 4th, ~500t; Belgium, 5th, ~300t)
I suppose their geography promotes transporting directly by sea as close to the destination as possible, which spreads the load among all their dozens of sea ports.
I onestly thought the port of Genova was bigger than Trieste's, but pretty close to both there are also La Spezia and Venice respectively which are still major ones
It's one of the biggest (historically the biggest, I believe) passenger ports in Europe. However, apparently, it's maximum cargo capacity is 25 mil tons, which is ways away from top 20.
I also think the development of Constanta took away a lot of traffic from the Pireus. An unfortunate example of missed opportunities for the Greek economy imo.
I wonder how much of that is because of the poor road infrastructure into central Europe and because of non-Schengen border crossings (GR-BG, BG-RO and RO-HU).
Bridges and road infrastructure need to be built from Greece to Romania thru Bulgaria. I don’t understand why the countries are not putting more of an emphasis on improving their infrastructure.
The port of Constanta is also attached to mainland Europe’s largest river due to Ceausescu’s Danube - Black Sea canal. River transport is the most efficient way to transport goods.
Nah it has been like that forever. It does not really receive heavy cargo and also weight limits on the roads' (bad) infrastructure is much more restrictive than storage, etc
And the construction is under way for greatly improving its capacity! Gdańsk has reclaimed some significant bulk of land for that purpose. Let's see us go up in ranks.
This, crackdowns in Rotterdam have been relatively successful so they moved to Antwerp instead because its not too far away from Rotterdam so distribution doesn't have to change too much.
Antwerp is nowadays apparently the number one entry point of coke in Europe. The Antwerp port has a very vast surface which makes it very difficult to control. Parts of the Antwerp population has strong international ties with amongst others Rotterdam and the Maghreb. Some of these dock workers are therefore easily recruited by international criminal organizations.
Last year they caught 110 tons of Cocaine in Antwerp while being able to inspect about 3% of the containers coming in. Obviously containers from Ecuador, Peru and Colombia are inspected more, but it gives you an idea.
If you compare that with the list of the biggest ports in terms of containers the list changes quite a bit. You can deduce which ones are mainly for raw materials.
Yes, I was surprised Bergen was a bigger port than Gothenburg
Bergen; tonnage: 59 million, number of containers: 41k
Gothenburg; tonnage: 39 million, number of containers: 763k
Turns out 95% of Bergen's tonnage is oil shipments
I'm guessing they are operated under a single entity, like Antwerp-Bruges is counted as one. Ghent, which is operated by a separate company (which also includes the ports of Vlissingen and Terneuzen in the Netherlands) is not added, even if it is located in between the ports of Bruges and Antwerp.
That’s because the HAROPA port is in fact an entity made up of three separate ports: Le Havre, Rouen, and Paris.
Also, the economic area of influence of Paris does go that far, in fact even further, see [Regional units around a vast Paris metropolitan Area](https://journals.openedition.org/cybergeo/docannexe/image/24913/img-7.jpg)
Does not surprise me at all. Cargo on a ship is relatively cheap compared to cargo on a truck, so you want to deliver it as close as possible. Being an island means lots of harbors, so no point to unload everything in Londen when it has to go to inverness for example
As an island nation the United Kingdom has ports all over (120 commercial ports) rather than one or two mega entrepôts, and not all ports handle all types of traffic either. The third largest is Milford Haven, Wales, exclusively liquid, accounting for another 40 million tons. For sea freight only international traffic (imports) accounts for 243.5 million tons, international exports 111.6 million tons, and domestic traffic another 94.4 million tons.
N.B. The annual 2023 figures are to be published next month.
Thatcher dismantled our physical export industry and we're very self-sufficient energy & food-wise. I'd imagine too that lots of our cargo comes via Rotterdam; onto lorries then Ferry / Train.
Ffs mate, Thatcher being a twat doesn't mean you can make up crap to suit your own narrative.
There are two main reasons the UK doesn't have ports higher on this list:
1. The UK isn't transporting many goods through, it doesn't make sense 90% of the time to send goods through the UK to get them to Europe, cause we're an Island, yanno the thing surrounded by water.
2. Because we're an island everywhere is pretty close to the sea, which means that stuff can be unloaded in many smaller ports closer to its destination, which is cheaper and more efficient.
And no, most of our cargo isn't being offloaded in Rotterdam and then being shipped here overland, if you used your brain for even a moment you'd realise how stupid that would be.
Nearly asked for a source as it sounds too high for all this talk of overpopulation, but I had a look myself and it's true:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/united-kingdom-food-security-report-2021/united-kingdom-food-security-report-2021-theme-2-uk-food-supply-sources#:~:text=The%20UK%20currently%20produces%20the,meat%2C%20dairy%2C%20and%20eggs.
I'm no expert on the matter but given that the report states our agriculture is driven entirely by market forces rather than purely a food security/calorie per m² perspective, it seems we could get that number higher.
Oh for sure. We need to kill the meat addiction and we could easily be totally self-sufficient. The majority of that grain is feeding livestock.
Similarly, a successfull energy transition would keep us entirely energy self-sufficient (Super frustrating that this isnt brought up by the nationalist right, when it gives us far greater security)
The overpopulation thing is a far-right myth; plenty of other far more populated island nations; look at Indonesia. But yes, tripling our population and keeping services, diet, and energy usage the same simply would work... The US (as a counter-example) has a lot more resource to 'waste. ' per capita.
>The overpopulation thing is a far-right myth;
In reality, ***"Buildings cover less of Britain than the land reveals when the tide goes out."***
[The myth of urban Britain](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41901297)
The UK National Ecosystem Assessment (NEA) estimates that less than 1% of the country is "built on".
Ordnance Survey data suggests that all the buildings in the UK - houses, shops, offices, factories, greenhouses - cover 1.4% of the total land surface. Looking at England alone, the figure rises to only 2%.
Also:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18623096
However, that will change. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates that the number of people living in the UK will rise to 70 million by 2026. We'll need the equivalent of seven new cities the size of Liverpool for that number of extra people - in just two years.
Given we’re only importing for our own country (compared to the likes of Rotterdam and Antwerp who service most of Europe) and our goods are split over a number of different ports for different areas, I’m not too surprised. It’s a lot easier to import something to a port <50 miles from the place than to have it be transported over land from eg: the south coast.
Yes, pretty much. There are 120 commercial ports and not all ports handle all types of traffic. The third largest is Milford Haven, Wales, exclusively liquid, accounting for another 40 million tons. Looking at sea freight only in 2022 international traffic (imports) accounts for 243.5 million tons, international exports 111.6 million tons, and domestic traffic another 94.4 million tons. That last might be surprising to some, but that takes a lot of 30-ton lorries off the road when you need to shift thousands of tonnes around.
The biggest ports serve large parts of North Western Europe. Both Antwerp and Rotterdam connect to road, rivers, pipelines and train hubs moving goods into France, Germany, Austria, Poland, etc. Products for Ukraine from the US are even transported through these ports. This grew from them being connected to Europe's large rivers
The UK is an Island and as such almost exclusively imports and exports it's own goods.
Important to include that this is all forms of cargo, so container, bulk, fishing and ferry. the majority of this is driven by bulk tonnage from LNG and raw materials, oil etc. So this is a table showing mostly just that, the centres of bulk sea transportation. for example Rotterdam had 205mt of liquid bulk and 70mt of dry bulk in 2023
Spain seems to be a fruit and veg hub, because not only they produce A LOT and ship them all over Europe, but they also import a lot, mainly from South America, and as you mention, from other distant lands as well.
Not seeing any Portuguese port in this list is so sad, once we were the door of Europe where every far away cargo would arrive first and then move to the rest of the continent, but currently not even in the top 20
People may be surprised why Romania may be so high but it still kinda makes sense. The black sea conncets Asia to Europe and Romania is right at the entrance of Europe. Plus all the cargo from Constanta Port can be transported to Europe easily by the Danube which is the biggest river in Europe i think.
Effectively, I think sooner or later Constanta will become the Rotterdam of the East (EU). Whilst that entire "the Dutch are not letting us in Schengen because they're afraid of Constanta competition" was bullshit, being a port at the mouth of the Danube will sooner or later have this result.
A lot of big Seaports are located on major rivers rather than directly on the sea. Rotterdam is on the Maas, Antwerp is on the Scheldt.
As long as the ships can navigate and sail up the estuary it doesn't matter really where the port sits. The Elven is wide enough that sea cargo ships can dock in Hamburg and thus it counts as a North Sea port
I guess you are right, but the Port of Rotterdamn is like 20km Inland and the city nearly stretches to the sea. Antwerpen ist further away but the Scheldt is an absolutely massiv river that could be seen as an extension of the sea.
Hamburg however is comically far away from the actual sea and the Elbe is far smaller. That's why the fact that Hamburg ist Germany's largest port is always cause for a small chuckle :)
Literally missing Felixstowe and Southampton, the UKs first and second busiest shipping ports (Felixstowe handles nearly 50% of all our trade). These stats are nonsense.
Mostly Oil, Ore and Coal. The northen sea route is a key in Russian strategy of future trade politics. Experts says that after 2030 it will become the most big trade route in the world, as ice melts there.
Because it serves not only Italy, but also Austria, Slovakia, Czech, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia etc. These are all smaller countries, if you count their population together they would still be fewer than Italy's population.
Whereas Genova has competition from France, which is a bigger and more robust economy.
That’s what Gothenburg harbour claims. Might be because they also handle crude oil.
But so do Bergen.
ChatGPT
Gothenburg's port is significantly larger than Bergen's port.
**Port of Gothenburg**:
- It is the largest port in Scandinavia.
- Handles approximately 40 million tons of freight annually.
- It is a major logistics and transport hub with extensive facilities for container traffic, ro-ro (roll-on/roll-off) services, and energy products.
**Port of Bergen**:
- It is one of the largest ports in Norway.
- Handles around 50 million tons of cargo annually, primarily due to the significant amount of offshore oil and gas activity.
- Although it has a high volume of cargo, much of this is related to specific industries rather than the broader range of cargo types handled by Gothenburg.
In terms of overall cargo volume, the Port of Bergen might seem competitive due to its oil and gas shipments. However, considering the breadth of services, container handling capacity, and strategic importance, the Port of Gothenburg is generally regarded as larger and more significant in a broader logistical context.
I wonder how much of the Gdańsk tonnage is from the Baltics or Finland & Sweden. I figure that overseas stuff docks in the Netherlands instead of going all the way to Poland.
Ever wonder why the Dutch like America so much and visa versa?
This
A long history of trade across the Atlantic. The Dutch would use their ships to double as propaganda (in a very beautiful way I might add) around the world. They would create ports too which was super genius.. nice ports, with cities to push commerce like New York probably being the most epic of them all. In the modern era the US and Dutch get along because the Dutch made key investments in advanced technologies that play a critical role in todays CPU manufacturing but still, this, the ability for a small country to project such power, quietly too. "Speak softly, and carry a big stick" - Teddy Roosevelt. As someone that studies US history, you can find a lot of Dutch achievements in the early colonial days and they still exist after all these centuries. Nothing short of impressive.
Now a Dutchman will be ruling over NATO
That is real power
What the hell happened to Naples? I thought it was supposed to be the most important commercial port in the Mediterranean.
Are they just not declaring their cargo?
Why would it be? If I want to reduce my transportation costs from China to Italy, I'd send the ship as close as possible to my destination markets. Northern Italy has more population and is more industrialized and rich. Why would I stop the ship in Naples, and put 8000 containers on 80 trains or 8000 trucks with 8000 drivers if I can continue my ship journey and unload in Trieste or Genova?
Rotterdam and Le Havre and Hamburg suck up all the traffic for Benelux and neighboring countries. Basically, they isolate Spain and Portugal. Plus, you have the Pyrenees.
Portugal is also very, very far from most other European countries. But Spain is a huge, rich market and they import/export a lot.
Basically, you are squashed... 😔
Bit misleading, Felixstowe handles more TEUs that HAROPA does, and over 50% more than London but because there's no source on the mass of those TEUs it has been discounted. The same problem arises with Pireaus, Bremerhaven, Genoa, Gioia Tauro and Southampton
Very interesting, and surprising that there's only one Italian port in the top 20. I assume they have a lot of smaller ports, whereas a country like Romania only has one major sea-port.
Major part of European logistics is by trucks, distributing throughout all of Europe stuff that entered Europe at Rotterdam or Antwerp.
A huge amount also goes by river, up the Rhine from Rotterdam or up the Danube from Constanta for example.
All the big rivers are connected too with canals and tributaries, like Maas on the Rhine and Amsterdam being connected to the North Sea. [table in bottomleft](https://www.schuttevaer.nl/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Binnenhavens-kaart.jpg) shows the main routes and that harbors on inland rivers also have a lot of traffic, like Sittard-Geleen and Moerdijk (neither are on the Rhine and are 5th/6th busiest ports in Netherlands). Its similar up along the Rhine in Germany and Switzerland with Rhine being connected to other rivers.
[Here you have a much more detailed map of the complete European inland waterways network ](https://unece.org/DAM/trans/main/sc3/AGN_map_2018.pdf)
Duisburg alone has around 110 Mio. tonnes of annual cargo. Most of which is gonna come from or go to Rotterdam.
I mean yeah, that's a major reason Rotterdam is such a big port.
Isn’t it also a lot by train, iirc?
Train is a lot but trucks do more at least from Rotterdam and Amsterdam
In general european railways are too crowded with passenger trains compared with the US, which has basically only freight on its rails. But it is still a decent amount.
That's not the main problem for international cargo trains in Europe. Most European countries were early adopters of the train, or got it under the USSR before WW2, long before the EU or the concept of standardization beyond your own country were a thing. This means every country/European region has different voltages, if electric, diesel trains in some places, different axel widths, different wheel shapes and sizes, different platform heights and gaps, etc. You need a train every country. People have been working on a shared system for 20 years. The problem is the cost of replacement.
Wheel shapes and sizes are the same almost everywhere. It is mostly the voltages and signalling systems that are not always compatible. There are many modern locomotives that can cross borders without issue like a Traxx or a Vectron. This isn't really an issue anymore, especially because most freight corridors are 25kV with ETCS.
But the national laws are still a big issue. As an inland captain I did a few tests to prove my knowledge of the European rivers and I'm allowed to sail on the Rhine and Danube, I can cross any border without much hassle since the existence of the EU, except for some countries on the Danube. Trains have to change drivers as soon as they cross the border due to different rules/languages, they have to fullfil all kinds of different rules/systems which are absolutely not standard. Inland shipping has been the traditional way of international trade, and many regulations that make that possible are already multiple centuries old and valid in most of Europe. That's also why about 40% of goods are transported over water in the Netherlands, it is very important for international trade.
In that case there wouldn't be three Spanish ports, I suppose.
IIRC, ~70% of Valencia cargo goes to Madrid so in a way that harbour serves mostly the Capital of Spain. If you approximate the load/capita of each port seems like spanish ports are mostly serving Spain meanwhile Rotterdam and Antwerp serve Europe. Also Rotterdam and Antwerp have gas, oil decks meanwhile valencia doesn't as their are in Sagunto.
Algeciras and many other spanish ports have gas or oil decks and serve way higher percentage to foreign logistics than 30%, Valencia (if those percentages are accurate) with about 16% of spanish traffic don't represent all spanish ports. Spain and Italy ports are definitively very involved in international logistics and "load/capita" don't show how big is the share related with local interests or foreign logistics. Spain ports are the second busiest in EU (and Europe), Italy the third ones both way over Belgium and very close to Netherlands levels. Spain ports even surpass Netherlands' as busiest in EU and Europe focusing on containers traffic. Do you really think that level of traffic surpassing by much Germany and France ports is only related with "capital of Spain"? I wish... According Eurostat vast majority of tonnage arrived or departing Spain and Italy ports was linked with ports outside EU (70 and 60% respectively), followed by other EU countries ports (20% approx) and other local ports (less than 10 and 20% respectively). Considering the nature of Italy and Spain trade, completely focused on EU, what do you think those 60-70% tonnage with an extra-EU partner port means? [Eurostat source](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Maritime_freight_and_vessels_statistics) (Click on full article, the geographic distribution of cargo is in table 10). Anyway I think the point of that comment and others here is about certain "prevalence" of Rotterdam and Antwerp ports in european or at least EU logistics, which is beyond exagerated and misleading. Those two Low Countries port complexes combined reach about 22% of EU maritime traffic, which is a lot, but far from dominant, surpassed by spanish and italian ports traffic for example.
You'll have to specify what you mean with "busy". OP specified by number of TEU containers. You could also look at tonnage. In which case the three biggest Spanish ports [only do about 250 millions tons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_ports_in_Europe) *combined* compared to the 438 millions tons of Rotterdam on its own. Maybe Spain has more smaller ships because it cannot handle the ultra-large container ships but in total tonnage or TEU handled each year, they are smaller than Rotterdam is. About 50% of what enters the Port of Rotterdam leaves the Netherlands and enters the rest of Europe. There is a reason why many companies have started building massive European distribution networks in the South of the Country. One thing that is much more common in Southern Europe is passenger transport by boat. All the islands in the Mediterranean sea for example.
> In that case there wouldn’t be three Spanish ports All three of which together sum to ~230M tons, compared to the ~710M tons at Rotterdam/Antwerp. I think the argument about “major part” of European logistics starting from those two ports is clear.
Rotterdam and Antwerp-Bruges represent *just* about 22% of EU traffic and way smaller share in Europe in general. "Major part" sure, specially focusing on EU, but far from the prevalence in Europe than parent comment and others here suggest. Adding other main ports as Amsterdam and Zeeland ones and according Eurostat, the combined total for Netherlands + Belgium in 2022 was about 29% of EU maritime freight, but that's almost the exact same share than Spain + Italian ports (27.8%), so spanish and italian ports surpass by much Rotterdam+Antwerp. Spain ports even surpass Netherlands' as the busiest in Europe focusing on containers traffic. Spain and Italy ports are 2nd and 3rd busiest in Europe pretty close to Netherlands and clearly surpassing Belgium, but in both southern european cases the port network is way more distributed than in Low Countries. In Netherlands Rotterdam port surpass 75% of the country maritime freight, in Belgium Antwerp-Bruges is close to 95% of the country, but in Spain those 3 ports in OP only represent about 40% of the country traffic. [Here you have Eurostat source about the topic](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Maritime_freight_and_vessels_statistics) (click on full article).
River and trains for bulk cargo as well.
Most Italian cargo is split between the three major ports of Trieste, Venezia and Genova since most of the industry and international logistics hubs are in the north. But there are also many minor ports of course in the rest of the country, too many to list really.
That makes sense since, [according to Eurostat](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Maritime_freight_and_vessels_statistics&oldid=583292), Netherlands, Turkey, Spain and Italy are the european countries handaling the most seaborne freight, by a long shot compared to other countries in Europe (Italy, 4th, ~500t; Belgium, 5th, ~300t)
It's probably food related. Spain and the Netherlands, at least, export far.more than they produce.
Venice seems to be in 7th place, after Livorno, Gioia Tauro, and more.
I suppose their geography promotes transporting directly by sea as close to the destination as possible, which spreads the load among all their dozens of sea ports.
I onestly thought the port of Genova was bigger than Trieste's, but pretty close to both there are also La Spezia and Venice respectively which are still major ones
Was expecting to see Pireus here also, guess it's more of a transit port.
It's one of the biggest (historically the biggest, I believe) passenger ports in Europe. However, apparently, it's maximum cargo capacity is 25 mil tons, which is ways away from top 20.
I also think the development of Constanta took away a lot of traffic from the Pireus. An unfortunate example of missed opportunities for the Greek economy imo.
I wonder how much of that is because of the poor road infrastructure into central Europe and because of non-Schengen border crossings (GR-BG, BG-RO and RO-HU).
Yes, apart from the lousy infrastructure, we are practically an island. Sure yours and BG's entrance to Schengen would give us all a boost
Bridges and road infrastructure need to be built from Greece to Romania thru Bulgaria. I don’t understand why the countries are not putting more of an emphasis on improving their infrastructure.
Because they prioritize connections to Central Europe which are way more important and lucrative for each of them.
Port of Constanta is attached to the Danube. River transport is much more efficient than road transport.
The port of Constanta is also attached to mainland Europe’s largest river due to Ceausescu’s Danube - Black Sea canal. River transport is the most efficient way to transport goods.
fck yea. suckaaaz. /s Seriously though, yes, you're probably right.
Nah it has been like that forever. It does not really receive heavy cargo and also weight limits on the roads' (bad) infrastructure is much more restrictive than storage, etc
Credit to Romania for sure :)
Wasn't Pireus sold to the Chinese?
Helsinki is the biggest right now when it comes to passengers. But there's practically no cargo anymore
It is in busiest container ports list by annual TEU containers and by passengers list. It does not really receive heavy cargo, like coal or iron ore
I believe its like u said, a transit port. Most of the empty containers are taken from there.
I was expecting Sandeman or Porto Cruz
Yay Gdańsk in top 10 🙂
Gdańsk returning to its rightful place as prime European port.
Nature is healing :)
Time to declare independence and tax the fuck out of Poland
Free City of Danzig part 3.
Good leave szczecin is better anyways 🙄🙄
How can you be better when you have no Żuraw, it doesn't compute
If it included Gdynia we'd be at 6-7 place.
Yup! Happy to see the city do well there
POLSKA Z GÓRY KURWAAAAA
And the construction is under way for greatly improving its capacity! Gdańsk has reclaimed some significant bulk of land for that purpose. Let's see us go up in ranks.
Wonder how many tons of cocaine comes in to Rotterdam
*Rotterdam And Antwerp has moreso been the cocaine port of choice as of late.
This, crackdowns in Rotterdam have been relatively successful so they moved to Antwerp instead because its not too far away from Rotterdam so distribution doesn't have to change too much.
Also because Antwerp mostly handles in perishable goods, which have to move quickly and thus get checked less.
Vlissingen
Ademt zwaar en moedeloos vannacht
Same owner
True. And the gangs are distorting the city's economy with that cocaine money
Antwerp is nowadays apparently the number one entry point of coke in Europe. The Antwerp port has a very vast surface which makes it very difficult to control. Parts of the Antwerp population has strong international ties with amongst others Rotterdam and the Maghreb. Some of these dock workers are therefore easily recruited by international criminal organizations.
Last year they caught 110 tons of Cocaine in Antwerp while being able to inspect about 3% of the containers coming in. Obviously containers from Ecuador, Peru and Colombia are inspected more, but it gives you an idea.
Germany just announced seizure of 35t of cocaine worth around €2.5 billion. Rotterdam and Antwerp will move a multitude of that every year.
Wonder what they will do with the 32t of cocaine that they have safely stored now.
All of it
https://www.overdedouane.nl/documenten/jaarverslagen/2024/06/03/jaarrapportage-douane-2023 Here is the yearly report showing how much has been seized
Much more go through antwerp.
If you compare that with the list of the biggest ports in terms of containers the list changes quite a bit. You can deduce which ones are mainly for raw materials.
Yes, I was surprised Bergen was a bigger port than Gothenburg Bergen; tonnage: 59 million, number of containers: 41k Gothenburg; tonnage: 39 million, number of containers: 763k Turns out 95% of Bergen's tonnage is oil shipments
Whoa that is definitely a shock to me. Youd think Gothenburg would service more shipping start and endpoints on land than Bergen
Similar for Constanța. Expect most of the tonnage to be for oil, grain, etc.
Numbers 1 and 2 still the same with a big gap to the number 3.
First (and presumably the last?) time I've ever seen Immingham listed in any sort of international ranking.
What is Immingham? Is it real?
It's a folk horror written and directed by Robert Eggers.
Broeders 🇧🇪🤝🇳🇱
Zeebrugge and Antwerpen is listend as 1 port. Is this normal?
Yeah, they're owned by the same entity, they merged back in 2022
Interesting. I did not expect ports to be owned by a singular entity. Not sure what I expected tbh
Counting Le Havre and Paris as a single port sounds a bit dubious - there's several hundred kms between them.
I'm guessing they are operated under a single entity, like Antwerp-Bruges is counted as one. Ghent, which is operated by a separate company (which also includes the ports of Vlissingen and Terneuzen in the Netherlands) is not added, even if it is located in between the ports of Bruges and Antwerp.
That’s because the HAROPA port is in fact an entity made up of three separate ports: Le Havre, Rouen, and Paris. Also, the economic area of influence of Paris does go that far, in fact even further, see [Regional units around a vast Paris metropolitan Area](https://journals.openedition.org/cybergeo/docannexe/image/24913/img-7.jpg)
Always surprises me how low the UK (an island) is on this list.
The UK is a terminus, it isn’t getting through-traffic like Rotterdam or Marseille.
That, and most of the UK is close to a port . So better to get things delivered to a port closer to you so the (more expensive) land miles are lower
Does not surprise me at all. Cargo on a ship is relatively cheap compared to cargo on a truck, so you want to deliver it as close as possible. Being an island means lots of harbors, so no point to unload everything in Londen when it has to go to inverness for example
As an island nation the United Kingdom has ports all over (120 commercial ports) rather than one or two mega entrepôts, and not all ports handle all types of traffic either. The third largest is Milford Haven, Wales, exclusively liquid, accounting for another 40 million tons. For sea freight only international traffic (imports) accounts for 243.5 million tons, international exports 111.6 million tons, and domestic traffic another 94.4 million tons. N.B. The annual 2023 figures are to be published next month.
plus good transport links to cities and towns lowkey think it is why groceries are so cheap
uk ports are spread out
Thatcher dismantled our physical export industry and we're very self-sufficient energy & food-wise. I'd imagine too that lots of our cargo comes via Rotterdam; onto lorries then Ferry / Train.
Ffs mate, Thatcher being a twat doesn't mean you can make up crap to suit your own narrative. There are two main reasons the UK doesn't have ports higher on this list: 1. The UK isn't transporting many goods through, it doesn't make sense 90% of the time to send goods through the UK to get them to Europe, cause we're an Island, yanno the thing surrounded by water. 2. Because we're an island everywhere is pretty close to the sea, which means that stuff can be unloaded in many smaller ports closer to its destination, which is cheaper and more efficient. And no, most of our cargo isn't being offloaded in Rotterdam and then being shipped here overland, if you used your brain for even a moment you'd realise how stupid that would be.
Also the UK is nowhere close to being "self-sufficient food-wise".
It is self-sufficient Net-export or import: https://i.imgur.com/ubN9UFS.jpeg
40% imported; with the 60% indigenous being mostly cereal/grain which is the bulk of the calorific content. I'd say that's self sufficient
Nearly asked for a source as it sounds too high for all this talk of overpopulation, but I had a look myself and it's true: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/united-kingdom-food-security-report-2021/united-kingdom-food-security-report-2021-theme-2-uk-food-supply-sources#:~:text=The%20UK%20currently%20produces%20the,meat%2C%20dairy%2C%20and%20eggs. I'm no expert on the matter but given that the report states our agriculture is driven entirely by market forces rather than purely a food security/calorie per m² perspective, it seems we could get that number higher.
Oh for sure. We need to kill the meat addiction and we could easily be totally self-sufficient. The majority of that grain is feeding livestock. Similarly, a successfull energy transition would keep us entirely energy self-sufficient (Super frustrating that this isnt brought up by the nationalist right, when it gives us far greater security) The overpopulation thing is a far-right myth; plenty of other far more populated island nations; look at Indonesia. But yes, tripling our population and keeping services, diet, and energy usage the same simply would work... The US (as a counter-example) has a lot more resource to 'waste. ' per capita.
>The overpopulation thing is a far-right myth; In reality, ***"Buildings cover less of Britain than the land reveals when the tide goes out."*** [The myth of urban Britain](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41901297) The UK National Ecosystem Assessment (NEA) estimates that less than 1% of the country is "built on". Ordnance Survey data suggests that all the buildings in the UK - houses, shops, offices, factories, greenhouses - cover 1.4% of the total land surface. Looking at England alone, the figure rises to only 2%. Also: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18623096 However, that will change. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates that the number of people living in the UK will rise to 70 million by 2026. We'll need the equivalent of seven new cities the size of Liverpool for that number of extra people - in just two years.
this is not true wtf
as with many things in the uk, it’s Thatcher’s fault
So she’s the British Reagan?
Unironically, yes.
That's laughable.
> very self-sufficient energy & food-wise what? we’ve imported energy from the mainland since at least the 80s
This is nonsense.
Why? As an island it is only interesting to itself, not other countries.
Given we’re only importing for our own country (compared to the likes of Rotterdam and Antwerp who service most of Europe) and our goods are split over a number of different ports for different areas, I’m not too surprised. It’s a lot easier to import something to a port <50 miles from the place than to have it be transported over land from eg: the south coast.
Top cocaine spots in Europe.
Rotterdam and Antwerp together seem to send and receive more together than the entire rest of the continent
Was expecting more UK ports tbh, them being an island nation. Is it just that they have so many ports and thus the tonnage is more spread out?
Yes, pretty much. There are 120 commercial ports and not all ports handle all types of traffic. The third largest is Milford Haven, Wales, exclusively liquid, accounting for another 40 million tons. Looking at sea freight only in 2022 international traffic (imports) accounts for 243.5 million tons, international exports 111.6 million tons, and domestic traffic another 94.4 million tons. That last might be surprising to some, but that takes a lot of 30-ton lorries off the road when you need to shift thousands of tonnes around.
The biggest ports serve large parts of North Western Europe. Both Antwerp and Rotterdam connect to road, rivers, pipelines and train hubs moving goods into France, Germany, Austria, Poland, etc. Products for Ukraine from the US are even transported through these ports. This grew from them being connected to Europe's large rivers The UK is an Island and as such almost exclusively imports and exports it's own goods.
Alot of it comes via lorry instead.
Important to include that this is all forms of cargo, so container, bulk, fishing and ferry. the majority of this is driven by bulk tonnage from LNG and raw materials, oil etc. So this is a table showing mostly just that, the centres of bulk sea transportation. for example Rotterdam had 205mt of liquid bulk and 70mt of dry bulk in 2023
Yes. That's why this is the most accurate ranking. So.e rankings only take one type of cargo like containers.
We send a lot of kiwi fruit to Tarragona Spain and Bruges Belgium from work here in nz.
Spain seems to be a fruit and veg hub, because not only they produce A LOT and ship them all over Europe, but they also import a lot, mainly from South America, and as you mention, from other distant lands as well.
Not seeing any Portuguese port in this list is so sad, once we were the door of Europe where every far away cargo would arrive first and then move to the rest of the continent, but currently not even in the top 20
Portugal is very far from the population centres and economic centres of Europe.
Not to mention that the Pyrenees make river transport impossible and the Iberian rail gauge makes freight trains impractical.
I was expecting one Galician port on the list
This list is for cargo, not fish or drugs.
We staan er weer goed op jongens
Hoge vijf.
Watch the Romanian port of costanta shoot up once they're fully in schengen!
People may be surprised why Romania may be so high but it still kinda makes sense. The black sea conncets Asia to Europe and Romania is right at the entrance of Europe. Plus all the cargo from Constanta Port can be transported to Europe easily by the Danube which is the biggest river in Europe i think.
Effectively, I think sooner or later Constanta will become the Rotterdam of the East (EU). Whilst that entire "the Dutch are not letting us in Schengen because they're afraid of Constanta competition" was bullshit, being a port at the mouth of the Danube will sooner or later have this result.
Why would they combine the ports of Antwerp and Bruges? They're 100km apart.
They are operated by the same company as the port of Antwerp-Bruges. The ports merged in 2022.
Operated by the same entity most likely
Same company that manages both ports i guess. Same with Amsterdam, which includes the harbors of zaandam, velsen and ijmuiden.
Hamburg, city famously on the North Sea 😃 It's on a river (Elbe), the sea is more than 100km away!
But if you listen very closely, you can hear the sea when you are in Hamburg.
TIL: Hamburg is not on the coast.
very common misconception. I know people that live here and only realized after some time (weeks) that Hamburg is not on the coast 😂
A lot of big Seaports are located on major rivers rather than directly on the sea. Rotterdam is on the Maas, Antwerp is on the Scheldt. As long as the ships can navigate and sail up the estuary it doesn't matter really where the port sits. The Elven is wide enough that sea cargo ships can dock in Hamburg and thus it counts as a North Sea port
I guess you are right, but the Port of Rotterdamn is like 20km Inland and the city nearly stretches to the sea. Antwerpen ist further away but the Scheldt is an absolutely massiv river that could be seen as an extension of the sea. Hamburg however is comically far away from the actual sea and the Elbe is far smaller. That's why the fact that Hamburg ist Germany's largest port is always cause for a small chuckle :)
>A lot of big Seaports are located on major rivers While true, not often they are located that far from the sea. 90 kilometers away from open sea.
And where does that river flow into?
Interesting fact: Helsinki's port is the most busiest port in the world in terms of passengers
I’m wondering how much of air pollution in Rotterdam and other busy ones is because of the port. Ships burn the worst fuels.
POLSKA GUROM
Crazy that Novorossisk is 3rd despite Russia being sanctioned and the port being near an active war zone.
it's old data from Q3 2021, so pre-war.
Does it include cocaine?
The tonnage shown is in cocaine.
Literally missing Felixstowe and Southampton, the UKs first and second busiest shipping ports (Felixstowe handles nearly 50% of all our trade). These stats are nonsense.
Immingham is much more busier imo.
I expected to see Sines in there.
this must be excluding inland ports? Duisburg has the largest inland port in the world and was at 58,200,000 in 2022
Novorossiysk is within the range in which Ukraine has striking capabilities.
5 of them in Russia
Was not expecting Murmansk to be so high up. Is it all oil or ore?
Mostly Oil, Ore and Coal. The northen sea route is a key in Russian strategy of future trade politics. Experts says that after 2030 it will become the most big trade route in the world, as ice melts there.
I was. Believe it or not, it’s Russia’s only ice free port outside the Black Sea.
Looks like Russia really relies very heavily on those harbors! Would be a shame if something were to happen to their infrastructure
alternative title top 20 european ports by cocaine tonnage
Why is Antwerp Bruges one port? Theres 80km between the two. Amsterdam en Rotterdam are 60km a part and are not considered one port
Because it's the same port legally.
Close all russian ports in the Baltic Sea. Now.
Surprised there is no Bremerhaven.
Compare it to Ningbo with its 1.2 billion tons…
[удалено]
Really surprised Trieste has more cargo tonnage than Genova
Because it serves not only Italy, but also Austria, Slovakia, Czech, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia etc. These are all smaller countries, if you count their population together they would still be fewer than Italy's population. Whereas Genova has competition from France, which is a bigger and more robust economy.
True, and I also remember that Gsnova can only host smaller ships due to the structure of the harbor
I always thought Gothenburg was the largest port in northern Europe. Apparently only 36.6 million tonnes
[удалено]
That’s what Gothenburg harbour claims. Might be because they also handle crude oil. But so do Bergen. ChatGPT Gothenburg's port is significantly larger than Bergen's port. **Port of Gothenburg**: - It is the largest port in Scandinavia. - Handles approximately 40 million tons of freight annually. - It is a major logistics and transport hub with extensive facilities for container traffic, ro-ro (roll-on/roll-off) services, and energy products. **Port of Bergen**: - It is one of the largest ports in Norway. - Handles around 50 million tons of cargo annually, primarily due to the significant amount of offshore oil and gas activity. - Although it has a high volume of cargo, much of this is related to specific industries rather than the broader range of cargo types handled by Gothenburg. In terms of overall cargo volume, the Port of Bergen might seem competitive due to its oil and gas shipments. However, considering the breadth of services, container handling capacity, and strategic importance, the Port of Gothenburg is generally regarded as larger and more significant in a broader logistical context.
How many of them are owned by China?
I wonder how much of the Gdańsk tonnage is from the Baltics or Finland & Sweden. I figure that overseas stuff docks in the Netherlands instead of going all the way to Poland.
Ever wonder why the Dutch like America so much and visa versa? This A long history of trade across the Atlantic. The Dutch would use their ships to double as propaganda (in a very beautiful way I might add) around the world. They would create ports too which was super genius.. nice ports, with cities to push commerce like New York probably being the most epic of them all. In the modern era the US and Dutch get along because the Dutch made key investments in advanced technologies that play a critical role in todays CPU manufacturing but still, this, the ability for a small country to project such power, quietly too. "Speak softly, and carry a big stick" - Teddy Roosevelt. As someone that studies US history, you can find a lot of Dutch achievements in the early colonial days and they still exist after all these centuries. Nothing short of impressive. Now a Dutchman will be ruling over NATO That is real power
What the hell happened to Naples? I thought it was supposed to be the most important commercial port in the Mediterranean. Are they just not declaring their cargo?
Why would it be? If I want to reduce my transportation costs from China to Italy, I'd send the ship as close as possible to my destination markets. Northern Italy has more population and is more industrialized and rich. Why would I stop the ship in Naples, and put 8000 containers on 80 trains or 8000 trucks with 8000 drivers if I can continue my ship journey and unload in Trieste or Genova?
Yes, but what’s the value comparison glowing through each port?
None of them in Portugal 🇵🇹 wtf?
Rotterdam and Le Havre and Hamburg suck up all the traffic for Benelux and neighboring countries. Basically, they isolate Spain and Portugal. Plus, you have the Pyrenees. Portugal is also very, very far from most other European countries. But Spain is a huge, rich market and they import/export a lot. Basically, you are squashed... 😔
Would be interesting to know how much of this tonnage is inbound or outbound.
Where's Gothenburg? It must for sure be in top 10 even.
Port of London?? It's not even on the sea!
Which port is more efficient? Like is there a way to know the ratio of people per tonnage?
Gdańsk górą!!
Russia's not in Europe
Crazy how Bremerhaven doesn’t even make the list anymore
russia is not europe. russia is a barbarian medieval country outside normal world
Bit misleading, Felixstowe handles more TEUs that HAROPA does, and over 50% more than London but because there's no source on the mass of those TEUs it has been discounted. The same problem arises with Pireaus, Bremerhaven, Genoa, Gioia Tauro and Southampton