This Map Shows The Biggest Shipping Ports In The World, And How Most Of Them Are Clustered In The Same Area

A surprising earlier map from Seth Kadish at Vizual Statistix showed that none of the world's busiest flight paths by passenger volume so much as touch North America or the United States.

Now, in a fascinating new map looking at the busiest container-ship ports by twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) shipped, Kadish shows that it's largely the same story.

The busiest port in the United States, in Los Angeles, is only the 16th busiest in the world. The only port in the top 10 outside of east Asia is the tax friendly Jebel Ali free zone in the United Arab Emirates.

Here's the map, based on data from the World Shipping Council. The top 15 ports are numbered, you can find the remainder here: