The 40 longest ships ever built
Ranked by length overall — from the 488 m Prelude down to Berge Stahl, with the honest asterisk explained.
Open the board →Deadweight is carrying capacity: cargo, fuel and stores combined. All five ships ever to exceed 500,000 t are on this board, alongside the ore giants and the last ULCCs still trading.
1
Seawise Giant564,763 t
C.Y. Tung / later owners · 1979Scrapped 2010
2
Pierre Guillaumat555,051 t
Compagnie Nationale de Navigation · 1977Scrapped 1983
3
Batillus553,662 t
Société Maritime Shell · 1976Scrapped 1985
4
Esso Atlantic516,891 t
Esso (Exxon) International · 1977Scrapped 2002
5
TI Europe441,893 t
CMB.TECH (Euronav) · 2002In service
6
TI Oceania441,600 t
CMB.TECH (Euronav) · 2002In service
7
Vale Brasil402,347 t
Vale (later Chinese owners) · 2011In service (renamed Ore Brasil, 2015)
8
Berge Stahl364,767 t
Berge Bulk · 1986Retired 2021
9
CMA CGM Jacques Saadé220,000 t
CMA CGM · 2020In service
10
Exxon Valdez214,861 t
Exxon Shipping Company · 1986Scrapped 2012
11
Ever Given199,489 t
Evergreen · 2018In service
12
Emma Mærsk156,907 t
Maersk · 2006In service
13
SS Ideal X16,460 t
Pan-Atlantic Steamship (Sea-Land) · 1956Scrapped 1964
13 ships ranked · every figure sourced on its own page · last verified 2026-07-15
More boards
Other records
The biggest cruise ships in the world
Ranked by gross tonnage — the ships you can actually book, led by Royal Caribbean’s Icon class. The full answer to the most-asked question at sea.
Open the board →The biggest ships by gross tonnage
Ranked by gross tonnage — internal volume, the honest measure for passenger ships and the record Pioneering Spirit owns outright.
Open the board →The biggest container ships
Ranked by nominal capacity in twenty-foot equivalent units — a board that runs from 24,346 down to the 58 boxes that started everything.
Open the board →The highest-capacity passenger ships
Ranked by passengers at double occupancy — where the mega-resorts stack up, and where the true liners deliberately do not.
Open the board →The Canal-Fit Checker
Pick any ship and get an instant verdict against Panamax, Neopanamax, Suezmax, Malaccamax, Seawaymax and Chinamax — with the limiting dimension highlighted.
Open the board →