Container Ship

ocean · cargo · engineering · global trade

Stacked like LEGO. Container ships stack truck-size boxes called containers on top of each other, sometimes piling them 20 boxes high. This clever stacking lets ships carry an enormous amount of stuff in one trip.

Ocean highways. Container ships travel the world's shipping lanes carrying clothes, electronics, toys, and food to ports near where you live. They transport most of the cargo that moves between countries by sea.

Boxes to trucks. The containers are designed to slide off the ship directly onto trucks and trains, making it super fast and easy to move cargo around. This system is called containerization, and it revolutionized how we move things globally.

Mega cargo holders. Modern container ships are so enormous they can carry over 20,000 containers in a single voyage. Some are longer than four football fields end to end.

Connects the world. Container ships let factories in one country send products all around the world affordably. Without them, buying things from other countries would be much more expensive.