The 10 Busiest Ports in Europe

1. Port of Rotterdam – Netherlands: 13.5 million TEUs
2. Port of Antwerp – Belgium: 10.8 million TEUs
3. Port of Hamburg – Germany: 8.7 million TEUs
4. Port of Bremerhaven – Germany: 5.4 million TEUs
5. Port of Valencia – Spain: 4.9 million TEUs
6. Port of Algeciras – Spain: 4.8 million TEUs
7. Port of Piraeus – Greece: 4.9 million TEUs
8. Port of Gioia Tauro – Italy: 4.0 million TEUs
9. Port of Felixstowe – United Kingdom: 3.8 million TEUs
10. Port of Barcelona – Poland: 3.4 million TEUs

What TEU means in shipping:

TEU stands for “twenty-foot equivalent unit.” It is a standard unit of measurement used in the shipping industry to describe the cargo-carrying capacity of a container ship or a container terminal. One TEU represents the cargo capacity of a standard 20-foot shipping container.

The use of TEUs as a unit of measurement allows the shipping industry to easily compare the cargo-carrying capacity of different container ships and container terminals. For example, a container ship with a capacity of 10,000 TEUs can carry 10,000 standard 20-foot shipping containers. Similarly, a container terminal with a capacity of 1 million TEUs can handle 1 million standard 20-foot shipping containers at a time.

Source: Eurostat, 2018