Port of Hamburg Port of Hamburg The Port of Hamburg (German: "Hamburger Hafen") is a sea port on the river Elbe in Hamburg, Germany, 110 kilometres from its mouth on the North Sea. It's Germany's largest port and is named the country's "Gateway to the World" (Tor zur Welt). In terms of TEU throughput, Hamburg is the third-busiest port in Europe (after Rotterdam and Antwerp) and 15th-largest worldwide. In 2014, 9.73 million TEUs (20-foot standard container equivalents) were handled in Hamburg. The harbour covers an area of 73.99 km² (64.80 km² usable), of which 43.31 km² (34.12 km²) are land areas. The location
Accession of Hamburg to the German Customs Union (Zollverein) form a wider more powerful entity. The states which joined fought vigorously against any impairment of their full sovereignty. Hence each member had a veto and the union was not permanent, but had to be renewed after 12 years. Each member sought its own economic advantage. Accordingly, the accession of any of the Hanseatic cities of Hamburg, Bremen or Lübeck would have to be on condition that accession served the city's own advantage. A pre-condition of such advantage was that their territory touched directly with that of the Customs Union, which only happened for Hamburg after 1854, when Hanover joined.