Busiest Ports in the U.S.- Coastal & Inland

Examining the 10 busiest ports in the US for both volume and tonnage as well as the 15 busiest inland ports that are not coastal. Many of the busiest focus on specific types of goods, while others are more general. Many are along the sea, while others are along the Great Lakes or major rivers.

Album displayed:
Stevie Wonder - "Talking Book" (1972)

0:00 Intro
1:04 Busiest Ports by Tonnage
3:38 Busiest Ports by Volume
6:57 Busiest Inland Ports not in Top 10 overall

[badgerjohn]

Minnesota is such a cool state. In terms of water transportation routes, it's essentially the center of North America. Headwaters of the Mississippi River which flows to the Gulf of Mexico, headwaters of the Red River which flows to Hudson Bay, and the huge inland port of Duluth where you can see ships from all over the world that have traveled through the St. Lawrence River and Great Lakes. And Duluth/Superior is just far inland for such a large port.

[mrswb]

As the amount of cocoa moving through Philadelphia, Hershey Pennsylvania is the headquarters of Hershey's company and there are several large chocolate manufacturers that operate near Harrisburg Pennsylvania

[AlyceLittle]

I love seeing videos like this that illustrate how urban and rural areas are connected in ways most people don't think about and how they both depend on one another for jobs and economic viability.

[thetoxbloxer]

“I have to report that the port of Portland is important”
Brilliant!

[BS-vxdg]

I remember as a teen reading the World Book encyclopedia about 50 years ago that Chicago was listed as the 10th largest seaport in the world, which was notable because it was inland. This was made possible by the then-recent opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway. But this was also before the age of container shipping, and I have to assume that container ships can't make that passage and so now Chicago is probably not even in the top 100. Looking forward to this video!

[BS-vxdg]

Your comment about San Francisco not really having a major port reminds me of a documentary I saw back in the late '70s. It was about the container revolution. Most people under the age of 50 probably only think of shipping as involving containers, but in the past ships were loaded with loose boxes on pallets, lifted by a small crane. I worked on such a loading dock long ago, and we would actually get down in the hold of the ships and pull boxes off of the pallets and stack them in the hold. The documentary I'm talking about was comparing the decline of the Port of San Francisco to the rise of the Port of Oakland, and it all came down to SF's failure to build the infrastructure for containers.

[tescherman]

It's a striking accident of geography that the US's 2nd-largest inland port of Duluth is over 1.700 miles (2, 700 kilometers) from the open ocean.

[kathleenhudson]

I live in Long Beach, California, and if you drive near the port, you can see stacks and stacks of shipping containers, with the big cranes constantly busy. Part of the reason Los Angeles and Long Beach ports are so busy is that they were among the first to modernize and be able to handle shipping containers.

They have also, in the last several decades, made great efforts to reduce pollution generated from port and shipping operations. They were the first ports in the world to offer shore power to ships.

[gitchfitness]

Duluth is such a cool port city, very underrated!

[martijnm]

Oh yes please do a worldwide or maybe even continent focused. Thanks for all the awesome and educative video's you make

[sidneyvandykeii]

Great video. With Kyle showing all of the U.S. ports on the Great Lakes it makes me want to see a Canadian version of this list... with comparisons to the U.S. ports that are close by.

[marcsamuelson]

My guess as to why Philadelphia is so important for cocoa imports is Hershey, Pennsylvania being a few hours west (Hershey Chocolates), Hackettstown, New Jersey is several hours north and that is where Mars, Inc. is headquartered. Campbells Foods is right across the Delaware River in Camden, New Jersey and they make way more than just soup. They own the Pepperidge Farm brand, who of course uses plenty chocolate for their cookies.

[ulfricstormcloak]

You should do a more in depth geography video of each of the Great Lakes

[brinkerlong]

I'm working as a hatch clerk on Al Riffa in Garden City Terminal (port of Savannah) while i watch this!

[patrickmazza]

Having lived in Portland I’m not surprised by the profusion of big inland ports. Never realized Kalama ranked, but there are huge grain elevators there, as in Portland. A little surprised you didn’t mention wood products and logs for Longview.

[ccroy]

I grew up in Long Beach, California and the port(s) had all kinds of interesting things, import cars were driven off ships and parked in huge parking lots, a naval shipyard, even a prison! (Terminal Island) Long Beach's motto was the International City, and I grew up exposed to many different cultures, which was really nice.

[iyoungblood]

I’d love to see a video about global ports. This is one of the semi-niche geography topics that has really captured my interest recently

[eazydp]

We just spent the weekend in Duluth. Watching the ships come in during -8F morning with steam rising off the lake was nothing short of magical. I recommend a visit summer or winter. So crazy that we have that port here in the middle of the country.

[adamritter]

Very interesting video! I'd love to see one highlighting the most used shipping routes, busiest waterways etc.

[arey]

Great video Kyle! The relationship between ports/shipping and freight trains is huge. Logistics Park and Global IV in the southwest Chicago suburbs are perhaps the largest inland “railports”, as much of the shipping containers loaded onto trains in LA/LB ends up there heading to the east coast and back. Would be worth a mention or a video!