As of the beginning of 2021, the Algeciras class is the largest container vessel in the world, able to carry nearly 24,000 TEU (twenty-foot long containers). It is constructed by Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering and owned by Hyundai Merchant Marine. As explained in the beginning of this essay, these massive ships are an essential, if not the most essential, part of our globalized world. And the United States and Europe are by no means at the center of it. All of the top ten busiest container shipping ports in the world are in Asia. Seven of those ten are in China. In comparison to processing as many as 37.13 million and 30.9 million TEUs a year, as Shanghai and Singapore did in 2016, the two busiest ports in the United States, Los Angeles and Long Beach, together processed just over 15.5 million in the same year. Rotterdam, the busiest port in Europe, processed just over 11.6 million.
This source is a part of the Using Ships as Guides for Transnational Adventures through World History teaching module.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
Shipping statistics: https://arcb.com/blog/10-busiest-seaports-in-the-world