Port Port A port is a maritime commercial facility which may comprise one or more wharves where ships may dock to load and discharge passengers and cargo. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, some ports, such as Hamburg, Manchester and Duluth, are many miles inland, with access from the sea via river or canal. Today, by far the greatest growth in port development is in Asia, the continent with some of the world's largest and busiest ports, such as Singapore and the Chinese ports of Shanghai and Ningbo-Zhoushan. Whenever ancient civilisations engaged in maritime trade, they tended to
Container port Container port A container port or container terminal is a facility where cargo containers are transshipped between different transport vehicles, for onward transportation. The transshipment may be between container ships and land vehicles, for example trains or trucks, in which case the terminal is described as a "maritime container port". Alternatively the transshipment may be between land vehicles, typically between train and truck, in which case the terminal is described as an "inland container port". In November 1932 in Enola the first inland container port in the world was opened by PRR Pennsylvania Railroad company Port Newark-Elizabeth on the Newark