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Port
A port is a maritime commercial facility which may comprise one
or more wharves where ships may dock to load and discharge
passengers and cargo. Although usually situated on a sea coast or
estuary, some ports, such as Hamburg, Manchester and Duluth,
are many miles inland, with access from the sea via river or canal.

Today, by far the greatest growth in port development is in Asia,

the continent with some of the world's largest and busiest ports,
such as Singapore and the Chinese ports of Shanghai and Ningbo-
Zhoushan.

The Port of New York and New Jersey grew from

the original harbor at the convergence of the
Contents Hudson River and the East River at the Upper
New York Bay.
History
Ancient ports
Modern ports
Types
Dry port
Fishing port
Inland port
Seaport
Cargo port
Cruise home port
Port of call
Warm-water port Seaport, a 17th-century depiction by
Claude Lorrain, 1638
Environmental impact
World's major ports
Africa
Asia
Europe
North America
Oceania
South America
See also
Other logistics hubs
Lists
References Shanghai Port is the world's busiest
container port
External links

History

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Ancient ports
Whenever ancient civilisations engaged in maritime trade, they tended to
develop sea ports. One of the world's oldest known artificial harbors is at Wadi
al-Jarf on the Red Sea.[1] Along with the finding of harbor structures, ancient
anchors have also been found.

Other ancient ports include Guangzhou during Qin Dynasty China and
Canopus, the principal Egyptian port for Greek trade before the foundation of
Alexandria. In ancient Greece, Athens' port of Piraeus was the base for the
Port of Hamburg
Athenian fleet which played a crucial role in the Battle of Salamis against the
Persians in 480 BCE. In ancient India from 3700 BCE, Lothal was a prominent
city of the Indus valley civilisation, located in the Bhāl region of the modern
state of Gujarāt. Ostia Antica was the port of ancient Rome with Portus
established by Claudius and enlarged by Trajan to supplement the nearby port
of Ostia. In Japan, during the Edo period, the island of Dejima was the only
port open for trade with Europe and received only a single Dutch ship per year,
whereas Osaka was the largest domestic port and the main trade hub for rice.

Nowadays, many of these ancient sites no longer exist or function as modern

ports. Even in more recent times, ports sometimes fall out of use. Rye, East
The port of Piraeus
Sussex, was an important English port in the Middle Ages, but the coastline
changed and it is now 2 miles (3.2  km) from the sea, while the ports of
Ravenspurn and Dunwich have been lost to coastal erosion.

Modern ports
Whereas early ports tended to be just simple harbours, modern ports tend to be
multimodal distribution hubs, with transport links using sea, river, canal, road,
rail and air routes. Successful ports are located to optimize access to an active
hinterland, such as the London Gateway. Ideally, a port will grant easy
navigation to ships, and will give shelter from wind and waves. Ports are often
Port of Klaipėda
on estuaries, where the water may be shallow and may need regular dredging.
Deep water ports such as Milford Haven are less common, but can handle
larger ships with a greater draft, such as super tankers, Post-Panamax vessels and large container ships. Other businesses
such as regional distribution centres, warehouses and freight-forwarders, canneries and other processing facilities find it
advantageous to be located within a port or nearby. Modern ports will have specialised cargo-handling equipment, such as
gantry cranes, reach stackers and forklift trucks.

Ports usually have specialised functions: some tend to cater mainly for passenger ferries and cruise ships; some specialise
in container traffic or general cargo; and some ports play an important military role for their nation's navy. Some third
world countries and small islands such as Ascension and St Helena still have limited port facilities, so that ships must
anchor off while their cargo and passengers are taken ashore by barge or launch (respectively).

In modern times, ports survive or decline, depending on current economic trends. In the UK, both the ports of Liverpool
and Southampton were once significant in the transatlantic passenger liner business. Once airliner traffic decimated that
trade, both ports diversified to container cargo and cruise ships. Up until the 1950s the Port of London was a major
international port on the River Thames, but changes in shipping and the use of containers and larger ships, have led to its

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decline. Thamesport,[2] a small semi-automated container port (with links to

the Port of Felixstowe, the UK's largest container port) thrived for some years,
but has been hit hard by competition from the emergent London Gateway port
and logistics hub.

In mainland Europe, it is normal for ports to be publicly owned, so that, for

instance, the ports of Rotterdam and Amsterdam are owned partly by the state
and partly by the cities themselves. By contrast, in the UK all ports are in
private hands, such as Peel Ports who own the Port of Liverpool, John Lennon
Airport and the Manchester Ship Canal.

Even though modern ships tend to have bow-thrusters and stern-thrusters,

many port authorities still require vessels to use pilots and tugboats for
manoeuvering large ships in tight quarters. For instance, ships approaching the
Belgian port of Antwerp, an inland port on the River Scheldt, are obliged to use
Dutch pilots when navigating on that part of the estuary that belongs to the
Netherlands.
Port of Seattle
Ports with international traffic have customs facilities.

Types
The terms "port" and "seaport" are used for different types of port facilities that
handle ocean-going vessels, and river  port is used for river traffic, such as
barges and other shallow-draft vessels.

Dry port
A dry port is an inland intermodal terminal directly connected by road or rail Port of Haifa, Israel
to a seaport and operating as a centre for the transshipment of sea cargo to
inland destinations.[3]

Fishing port
A fishing port is a port or harbor for landing and distributing fish. It may be a Port of Barcelona, one of Spain's
recreational facility, but it is usually commercial. A fishing port is the only port largest ports
that depends on an ocean product, and depletion of fish may cause a fishing
port to be uneconomical.

Inland port
An inland port is a port on a navigable lake, river (fluvial port), or canal with access to a sea or ocean, which therefore
allows a ship to sail from the ocean inland to the port to load or unload its cargo. An example of this is the St. Lawrence
Seaway which allows ships to travel from the Atlantic Ocean several thousand kilometers inland to Great Lakes ports like
Toronto, Duluth-Superior, and Chicago.[4]

Seaport
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A seaport is further categorized as a "cruise port" or a "cargo port".

Additionally, "cruise ports" are also known as a "home port" or a "port of call".
The "cargo port" is also further categorized into a "bulk" or "break bulk port" or
as a "container port".

Cargo port
Cargo ports, on the other hand, are quite different from cruise ports, because
each handles very different cargo, which has to be loaded and unloaded by very
different mechanical means. The port may handle one particular type of cargo Port of Busan, Korea. Two Maersk
or it may handle numerous cargoes, such as grains, liquid fuels, liquid vessels can be seen in the
background.
chemicals, wood, automobiles, etc. Such ports are known as the "bulk" or
"break bulk ports". Those ports that handle containerized cargo are known as
container ports. Most cargo ports handle all sorts of cargo, but some ports are
very specific as to what cargo they handle. Additionally, the individual cargo
ports are divided into different operating terminals which handle the different
cargoes, and are operated by different companies, also known as terminal
operators or stevedores. Port of Montreal, Quebec.

Cruise home port

A cruise  home  port is the port where cruise ship passengers board (or
embark) to start their cruise and disembark the cruise ship at the end of their
cruise. It is also where the cruise ship's supplies are loaded for the cruise, which
includes everything from fresh water and fuel to fruits, vegetables, champagne,
and any other supplies needed for the cruise. "Cruise home ports" are very busy
places during the day the cruise ship is in port, because off-going passengers
debark their baggage and on-coming passengers board the ship in addition to
The Port of Duluth-Superior, the
all the supplies being loaded. Currently, the Cruise Capital of the World is the
largest freshwater port in the world
Port of Miami, Florida, closely followed behind by Port Everglades, Florida and
the Port of San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Port of call
A port  of  call is an intermediate stop for a ship on its sailing itinerary. At
these ports, cargo ships may take on supplies or fuel, as well as unloading and
loading cargo while cruise liners have passengers get on or off ship.

Warm-water port
Cargo port in Hilo, Hawaii
A warm­water  port is one where the water does not freeze in wintertime.
Because they are available year-round, warm-water ports can be of great
geopolitical or economic interest. Such settlements as Dalian in China,
Vostochny Port,[5] Murmansk and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in Russia, Odessa in Ukraine, Kushiro in Japan and Valdez
at the terminus of the Alaska Pipeline owe their very existence to being ice-free ports. The Baltic Sea and similar areas have
ports available year-round beginning in the 20th century thanks to icebreakers, but earlier access problems prompted
Russia to expand its territory to the Black Sea.

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Environmental impact
There are several initiatives to decrease negative environmental impacts of ports. These include SIMPYC, the World Ports
Climate Initiative, the African Green Port Initiative and EcoPorts.[6]

World's major ports

Africa
The busiest port in Africa is Port Said in Egypt.

Asia
The port of Shanghai is the largest port in the world in both cargo tonnage and
activity. It regained its position as the world's busiest port by cargo tonnage
and the world's busiest container port in 2009 and 2010, respectively. It is
followed by the ports of Singapore and Hong Kong, both of which are in Asia.

Europe
Europe's busiest container port and biggest port by cargo tonnage by far is the
The port of Visakhapatnam in
Port of Rotterdam, in the Netherlands. It is followed by the Belgian Port of
Andhra Pradesh, India
Antwerp or the German Port of Hamburg, depending on which metric is
used.[7] In turn, the Spanish Port of Valencia is the busiest port in the
Mediterranean basin.

North America
The largest ports include the ports of Los Angeles and South Louisiana in the U.S., Manzanillo in Mexico and Vancouver in
Canada. Panama also has the Panama Canal that connects the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean, and is a key conduit for
international trade.

Oceania
The largest port in Australia is the Port of Melbourne.

South America
According to ECLAC's "Maritime and Logistics Profile of Latin America and the Caribbean", the largest ports in South
America are the Port of Santos in Brazil, Cartagena in Colombia, Callao in Peru, Guayaquil in Ecuador and the Port of
Buenos Aires in Argentina.[8]

See also
Anchorage (shipping)
Megaproject
Marina - port for recreational boating
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Port operator
Ship transport

Other logistics hubs

Airport
Spaceport
Port of entry

Lists
Lists of ports
List of busiest cruise ports by passengers

References
1. Rossella Lorenzi (12 April 2013). "Most Ancient Port, Hieroglyphic Papyri Found" (http://news.discovery.com/history/a
ncient-egypt/worlds-oldest-port-and-egyptian-papyrus-uncovered-130412.htm). Discovery News. Retrieved 21 April
2013.
2. "Welcome" (http://www.londonthamesport.co.uk). London Thamesport. Retrieved 6 September 2018.
3. "Feasibility Study on the network operation of Hinterland Hubs (Dry Port Concept) to improve and modernise ports'
connections to the hinterland and to improve networking" (https://web.archive.org/web/20080413200609/http://www.inl
oc.info/internal/wp1/activity_15_feasibility_study_dry_ports.pdf) (PDF). InLoc. January 2007. Archived from the
original (http://www.inloc.info/internal/wp1/activity_15_feasibility_study_dry_ports.pdf) (PDF) on 2008-04-13.
Retrieved 2008-03-10.
4. "Seaway System" (http://www.greatlakes-seaway.com/en/). greatlakes-seaway.com.
5. "Vostochny Port JSC, Geography, Location" (https://web.archive.org/web/20121129011546/http://www.vpnet.ru/eng/ge
o/main_geo.htm). Vostochny Port website. 2007. Archived from the original (http://www.vpnet.ru/eng/geo/main_geo.ht
m) on 29 November 2012. Retrieved 13 December 2012. "...  Vostochny Port is located in the south of Primorsky
Region, in the southeast of Nakhodka bay, in Vrangel bay. This is unique natural harbor is no ice restrictions even in
severe winters. ..."
6. EOS magazine, 6,2012
7. "World Port Rankings 2011" (http://aapa.files.cms-plus.com/PDFs/WORLD%20PORT%20RANKINGS%202011.pdf)
(PDF). Agência Nacional de Transportes Aquaviários. Antaq, Brazil. 2011. Retrieved 6 September 2018.
8. "Los 10 mayores puertos de América Latina y Caribe en tráfico de contenedores" (https://sectormaritimo.es/los-10-ma
yores-puertos-de-america-latina-y-caribe-en-trafico-de-contenedores). Revista de Ingeniería Naval (in Spanish).
Madrid, Spain: Asociación de Ingenieros Navales y Oceánicos de España. September 28, 2016. Retrieved May 3,
2017.

External links
Port Industry Statistics, American Association of Port Authorities (http://www.aapa-ports.org/Industry/content.cfm?Item
Number=900&navItemNumber=551)
Information on yachting facilities at ports around the world from Noonsite.com (http://www.noonsite.com/Countries)
Social & Economic Benefits of PORTS (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/esb/?goal=commerce&file=obs/marine/ports/)
from "NOAA Socioeconomics" website initiative
Antunes, Cátia: Early Modern Ports, 1500-1750 (http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0159-2010102547), European
History Online, Mainz: Institute of European History, 2011, retrieved: November 2, 2011.

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