The Port of Rotterdam – among the most important in the world

The world can be divided into 28 major maritime regions, which may extend across several countries. Among them we find the Port of Rotterdam, known for handling the largest volume of cargo in Europe.

A maritime region is a delimited area in which a set of ports either compete with one another, or are complementary, or share a common regulatory regime, or have certain basic geographical characteristics, such as contiguity or proximity, or form part of an
archipelago.

There are 835 active seaports and river ports of various sizes on the planet.

As a rule, a ranking of ports is not drawn up by size in terms of the land area each port occupies, but according to the volume of cargo it handles each year.

Shipping volumes are usually measured using a unit called the TEU.
TEU – Twenty Equivalent Unit – 20’ container (20 feet).
FEU – Forty Equivalent Unit – 40’ container (40 feet).
So each 40-foot container handled by a port contributes two TEU (40 divided by 20) to the assessment of that port's size, and each 20-foot container handled in the port adds one TEU.

The most important ports in the world

Top 20 ports worldwide:

1. Shanghai
2. Singapore
3. Shenzhen
4. Ningbo-Zhoushan
5. Guangzhou
6. Busan
7. Hong Kong
8. Qingdao
9. Tianjin
10. Jebel Ali
11. Rotterdam
12. Port Klang
13. Antwerp
14. Kaohsiung
15. Xiamen
16. Dalian
17. Los Angeles
18. Tanjung Pelepas
19. Hamburg
20. Port of Long Beach
As you can see, only five of the world's top 20 ports are now located outside East Asia. Only three European ports have made it into the Top 20.

The Port of Rotterdam – at the top of the European ports

The ranking of European ports is made up of:
1. Rotterdam
2. Antwerp
3. Hamburg
4. Piraeus
5. Valencia
6. Algeciras
7. Bremen-Bremerhaven
8. Barcelona
9. Gioia Tauro
10. Le Havre

The history of the port of Rotterdam

The Port of Rotterdam is the largest in Europe and from 1962 to 2004 it was the busiest port. It was subsequently overtaken by Shanghai.

A city and large river-and-sea port complex in the south-western part of the Netherlands, Rotterdam, which in translation would mean “the dam on the Rotte”, lies on the northern arm of the Rhine delta, almost 30 km from the North Sea.

Its older history takes shape in the fourteenth century, when it was declared a city. For a long time the city lived in the shadow of Amsterdam, but the closure of navigation on the Scheldt following the fighting with Spain, the influx of emigrants from Antwerp (1585), the choice of the city by English merchants as a warehouse for their goods, and the intense shipbuilding activity brought about a spectacular growth in port traffic and a rapid economic development of the city.

It later became open to international shipping and attracted numerous shipping companies and agencies. This made it the leading national port of the Netherlands. In the first decades of our century, the port was enlarged. New basins were built and the shipyards were developed.

Rotterdam is one of the ports of departure for the great transatlantic liners, which embarked passengers at Koop van Zuid, a district that is now being thoroughly restructured. Over the centuries, Rotterdam has evolved from a small fishing village into an international centre of trade, transport, industry and distribution. After the war, the greatest importance was given to rebuilding what had been destroyed, and today a new and modern city has risen from the ashes. From a historical point of view, the city of Rotterdam as a large and modern port was reborn like the Phoenix from the ashes of the Second World War.

The port function

The Port of Rotterdam has an area of 304.24 km². The port function is the only one that exceeds the city's industrial activity in importance. The port complex lies along some 18 km of the banks of the Nieuwe Maas, which is 500 metres wide in this section. The complex is made up of 32 basins, 12 of them on the right bank, and of the immense artificial port, built from 20 successive basins dug into the left bank. Access to this immense port complex is via the Nieuwe Maas (not crossed by bridges). It is over 31 km long and is dredged to 15 metres, the entrance being protected by an offshore breakwater. The port's quays, which stretch for approximately 32 metres (of which over 16 km are reserved for vessels of the river fleet), allow 252 ocean-going vessels to berth at the same time.

The Port of Rotterdam and the Port of Constanța

The opening of the Main – Rhine Canal, in 1992, created a direct navigable connection between the Port of Constanța and the Port of Rotterdam.

More and more goods are loaded, unloaded or transit the Port of Rotterdam. At the same time, a growing number of firms and companies wish to set up operating bases here. Absolutely every kind of port operation is carried out in this conglomerate: operations relating to conventional cargo, breakbulk, containers, the RO-RO system, the LASH system, etc.

All types of vessel can be handled with maximum efficiency, all categories of activity can be found, and all forms of logistics interconnection. All intermodal transport systems operate on the basis of state-of-the-art technologies.

Absolutely all the prominent names in the shipping industry are present. The port/continent hinterland connections work with precision. The specific efficiency indicators for vessel operations have the highest values in Europe. The Port of Rotterdam, the largest in Europe, is interested in collaborating with the Port of Constanța to build multimodal transport terminals on the Danube.

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