Largest US Ports in 2011

choi

"USA SNAPSHOTS

Largest US Ports
Tonnage in trade in 2011 (in millions):

South Louisiana...............246.5
Houston..........................237.8
New York and NJ.............139.2
Long Beach.......................80.3
New Orleans.....................77.2

Source Army Corps of Engineers; as of Sept 30, 2012, latest available

ANNE R CAREY AND PAUL TRAP, USA TODAY"


Note:
(a) This appeared on USA Today, Aug 5, 2013 (front page).
(b) "New York and NJ," rather than having New Jersey spelled out. I guess there was no space.

(c) US Public Port Facts. American Association of Port Authorities, undated.
http://www.aapa-ports.org/Industry/content.cfm?ItemNumber=1032

Quote:

(i) Cruise Passenger Industry:

"• The cruise line industry generated more than $35 billion to the U.S. economy in 2009 and created nearly 314,000 U.S. jobs

"• In 2009, US ports accounted for about three quarters of global cruise embarkations

(ii) "Navigation Channels   •  Since 1789 the federal government has authorized navigation channel improvement projects; the General Survey Act of 1824 established the US Army Corps of Engineers' role as the agency responsible for the navigation system. Since then, ports have worked in partnership with the Corps of Engineers to maintain waterside access to port facilities.

(iii) "International Trade[:] Deep draft ports accommodate ocean-going vessels, which move over 99 percent of U.S. overseas trade by weight and 65 percent by value. (Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census)

"• In 2010, the US was the largest trading nation in the world for exports of goods and services. In that year, the U.S. accounted for roughly 8.4% of the world goods export trade and about 14% of world services export trade (Source: U.S. International Trade Administration)

* embark (vi): "to go on board a vehicle for transportation"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/embark
* China Eclipses US as Biggest Trading Nation. Bloomberg, Feb 10, 2013
("China surpassed the US to become the world’s biggest trading nation last year as measured by the sum of exports and imports of goods, official figures from both countries show")
* List of countries by exports
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_exports
(CIA World Factbook for 2012 estimates, rounding up the top ten: China > US> Germany> Japan> France > South Korea > Netherlands> Russia > Italy > UK; Hong Kong (11), Singapore (12), Taiwan (19))

(d) United States Army Corps of Engineers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uni ... _Corps_of_Engineers
(made up of some 36,500 civilian and military personnel, making it the world's largest public engineering, design, and construction management agency; provides 24% of US hydropower capacity; section 1.1 Early history)

(e) USA Today Derives its data from

Table 1-57: Tonnage of Top 50 US Water Ports, Ranked by Total Tons (a). Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Research and Innovative Technology Administration, US Department of Transportation (DOT), undated (but USA Today identified it "as of Sept 30, 2012")
http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/site ... ml/table_01_57.html

* Los Angeles as No 8 is listed separately from Long Beach. If Port of Los Angeles (65.0 million tons) and Port of Long Beach (80.3 million tons) are to combined, New York and New Jersey (139.2 million tons) will become No 3.
* My hometown Boston is No 36. No wonder I never see a cargo ship in Boston Harbor. Then again I have not been not in the right place to see. The locus in Boston Harbor (managed by a state agency MassPort) is in South Boston (a neighborhood WITHIN City of Boston)--specifically

Conley Terminal. MassPort, undated
http://www.massport.com/port-of- ... conleyterminal.aspx
("Boston's top imports through Conley Terminal are alcoholic beverages, frozen seafood, footwear and furniture. Top exports include hides and skins, automobiles, logs and lumber, frozen seafood, paper including waste paper, and scrap metal")

So high-tech stuff, which makes up most of Massachusetts export by value, does not go through the sea but by air.

(f) Port of South Louisiana
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_of_South_Louisiana
(the largest volume [judged by volume, not weight or value] shipping port in the Western Hemisphere and 9th largest in the world; one of the largest bulk cargo port in the world * * * for grain shipments from the Midwest, handling some 60% of all raw grain exports [of US]; extends 54 miles (87 km) along the Mississippi River between New Orleans, Louisiana and Baton Rouge, Louisiana)