Container Port Traffic Worldwide by Year, 2010-2024

About This Dataset

Total container throughput handled by the world's ports each year from 2010 to 2024, in millions of twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU). The series covers global container movements and shows how seaborne trade volumes responded to the 2020 pandemic and to the years that followed.

✨ AI Insight

Global container traffic rose from 547.1 million TEU in 2010 to 913.3 million in 2024, an increase of 67%. Growth was remarkably steady: across fifteen years there is only one decline, in 2020, and it was slight, 803.1 down to 791.1 million TEU, a fall of just 1.5%. Container shipping therefore absorbed the pandemic far better than passenger transport did. The rebound was immediate, with 2021 adding 53.5 million TEU, and after three comparatively flat years the largest single-year gain of the whole series arrived in 2024, up 59.7 million TEU to a series high.

Source: World Bank / Containerisation International

Key Findings

Auto-computed highlights from this dataset

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2024 leads with 913 in 2010-2024.

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Average value in 2010-2024: 737 · median: 747.

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Gap in 2010-2024: 2024 is 1.7× larger than 2010.