Which port is the world's busiest container port as of 2023?

The world’s busiest container port as of 2023 was the Port of Shanghai.

Shanghai’s port handled about 49 million twenty-foot equivalent units, or TEUs, in 2023. A TEU is the standard measurement for container traffic, based on the capacity of a 20-foot-long shipping container. The port’s ranking refers to container throughput, not necessarily total cargo weight, vessel calls, or passenger traffic.

The Port of Shanghai is a vast deep-water and river-port complex serving China’s Yangtze River Delta, one of the world’s major manufacturing and trading regions. Its facilities include the Yangshan Deep-Water Port, linked to the mainland by the Donghai Bridge. This geography allows large ocean vessels to connect with inland industrial and distribution networks.

Singapore, Shenzhen, and Ningbo-Zhoushan are also leading container ports and often appear near the top of global rankings. Rankings can change by year and can use slightly different data conventions, but Shanghai led the 2023 container-throughput table.