Ranking America’s Busiest Container Ports
By Jock O’Connell
Normally, the Port of Los Angeles tops the list with the highest volume of container traffic, with the Port of Long Beach and the Port of New York/New Jersey jockeying for second place. But which ports come next? And, given that some ports refuse to disclose their TEU tallies, are we missing something by relying too heavily on the TEU metric to rank the nation’s ports? So let’s substitute the declared weight of containerized cargo for the number of TEUs in a new ranking of the nation’s Top Twenty container ports.
Exhibit 6 displays the Top Twenty U.S. Container Gateways, based on the weight in metric tons of the containerized goods transported during the first three quarters of this year.
Top 20 U.S. Container Gateways, September 2024 YTD
| Port | Metric Ton |
|---|---|
| Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach | 58,388,184 |
| Port of New York/New Jersey | 35,185,056 |
| Houston | 24,806,543 |
| Savannah | 24,184,696 |
| Norfolk | 17,038,017 |
| Charleston | 12,588,385 |
| Northwest Seaport Alliance | 11,653,739 |
| Oakland | 9,648,103 |
| Miami | 4,603,719 |
| New Orleans | 4,496,411 |
| Philadelphia | 4,445,841 |
| Port Everglades | 3,987,644 |
| Baltimore | 3,735,207 |
| Mobile, AL | 3,312,674 |
| San Juan, PR | 3,039,908 |
| Jacksonville | 2,214,174 |
| Wilmington, DE | 1,655,747 |
| Wilmington, NC | 1,502,797 |
| Boston | 1,306,729 |
| Port Hueneme | 1,108,808 |
Source: U.S. Commerce Department