Container ships

The category, explained

Container ships carry the standardised steel boxes that make modern trade possible, and they are measured in TEU — twenty-foot equivalent units, the count of standard boxes a ship is rated to carry. The growth curve is the story of globalisation itself: Ideal X carried 58 boxes in 1956; MSC Irina is rated for 24,346.

The giants have converged on a hard envelope — about 400 metres long and 61.5 wide, the practical ceiling set by the Suez Canal, berth lengths and crane reach — so the record now moves by dozens of TEU rather than thousands. Every ship here is ranked by TEU, within its own unit, never against tankers or cruise ships.

Every one here

Side profiles are sized by real length overall — longer ships draw bigger.

Ranked by length