How we calculate our numbers
Every derived metric on this site is computed from the sourced core specification. Here is exactly how — so the numbers are checkable, and citable.
Every derived metric, formula by formula
Passengers per metre
Formula: passengers (double occupancy) ÷ length overall
How densely a passenger ship uses her length. Mega cruise ships cluster around 15; Queen Mary 2, built for ocean crossing rather than capacity, sits far lower — the number is a design philosophy in one figure.
TEU per metre
Formula: nominal TEU ÷ length overall
The packing race made visible. With every megamax pinned at about 400 m, capacity gains show up here: Emma Mærsk carries ≈39 TEU per metre of hull, MSC Irina ≈61 — same length, a different era of stacking.
Length-to-beam ratio
Formula: length overall ÷ beam
The classic shape number. Ocean liners built for speed run long and narrow (QM2 ≈8.4); box-maximising giants run fat (megamaxes ≈6.5); Pioneering Spirit, at ≈3.1, barely counts as ship-shaped — which is the point of her.
Why ranks never mix units
A cruise ship is measured by gross tonnage (internal volume), a container ship by TEU (box slots), a tanker by deadweight (tonnes lifted). These are three different physical quantities, and a board that ranked them against each other would be fiction. On this site every rank chip says its unit, every board ranks within one unit, and pre-1982 gross register tonnage (Titanic and the 1970s tankers) is flagged as GRT and excluded from the modern GT board rather than mixed in dishonestly.
What the ✓ tick actually means
Fleet and status data move constantly, and most ship sites quietly present a stale number as fact. We do not. Every operator row on this site is one of two things, and we say which.
A row marked ✓ has been individually checked against a named source — an operator page, a builder's delivery record, or registry data — and that source is listed at the bottom of the page. A row marked ≈ is an approximate snapshot: broadly right, good enough to reason about, and not something you should quote in a contract. Currently 37 of 46 operator rows carry a tick. That number will only go up.
We would rather show you an honest ≈ than a confident lie.
Where the core data comes from
Core specifications are taken from operator fact sheets, builder delivery records and classification or registry data, cited per row on every spec table. Historical ships use inquiry records, museum archives and published class data. Where sources conflict, we say so on the page and carry the honest range or an ≈.
Every silhouette is an original parametric drawing composed from the published dimensions — never traced from photographs or other people's drawings. If you spot an error, tell us — corrections are made visibly, not silently.