Port of Guangzhou, China

The 21.87 million TEUs it registered in 2018 marked a 7.4% increase from its 2017 performance and allowed itself to propel above the port of Busan and the neighboring port of Hong Kong.

Its deepwater port, Nansha, is responsible for over 70% of the total container volume at the Port of Guangzhou.

Port efforts are also ongoing to ensure growth. That includes development work on its on-dock rail access, a cold storage facility, and the completion of its automated unmanned parallel container quay in Nansha. The latter, a world’s first, will boost the Nansha area’s container handling capabilities to 20 million TEUs a year

The Port of Guangzhou leaped two spots to become the fifth busiest port in the world from its 2017 ranking of seventh-place after a record-breaking number of TEUs handled in 2018.




Port of Guangzhou is the main seaport of Guangzhou city, Guangdong province, China. The port is operated by Guangzhou Port Group Co. Ltd which is a state owned company. The company was established on February 26, 2004 from the former Guangzhou Harbor Bureau. It was approved by the Guangzhou Municipal Government. It is currently the largest comprehensive port in South China. Its international maritime trade reaches over 300 ports in more than 80 countries and districts worldwide. The port also incorporates the former Huangpu Port.




The port also serves as the important economic and transport center for the Pearl River Delta region and Guangdong province. It is also vital transport hub for industries located in neighboring provinces such as Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Hunan, Hubei and Jiangxi.




Guangzhou Port is situated at the intersection of the three most important rivers of Dongjiang, Xijiang and Beijiang in South China. All the three rivers have the waterway, railway, expressway and air lines intersecting here, thus forming a critical transportation hub. It is the main port of focus in the Pearl River Delta Region.




The port's harbor area extends along the Pearl River coast and water areas in the cities of Guangzhou, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Shenzhen and Zhuhai. The port being situated beyond the entrance of Pearl River opening serve as a gateway for shipping activity for other Harbor area such as Nansha Harbor Area, Xinsha Harbor Area, Huangpu Harbor Area and Inner Harbor Area, and Nansha Harbor Area near Hong Kong.




As the biggest comprehensive hub port in South China, Port of Guangzhou is experiencing an increase in cargo volume and ships calling in. This is due to the buoyant economic activity in Guangzhou and the surrounding hinterland.




In 1999, Port of Guangzhou surpassed its annual cargo throughput of 100 million tons. It is the second port in Mainland China to ranked with such record volume. As a result, the annual cargo volume continues to grow. In 2006, the whole Guangzhou Port surpassed 300 million tons (ranking the third in China's coastal ports and the fifth among the world top ten ports) and 665 million TEUs, and Guangzhou Port reached 201 million tons and 4.774 million TEUs.




The port is part of the Maritime Silk Road that runs from the Chinese coast to the southern tip of India, to Mombasa, from there through the Red Sea via the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean, to the Upper Adriatic region of the northern Italian hub Trieste with its rail connections to Central Europe and the North Sea.