Emma Mærsk
Maersk · Container · In service · built by Odense Steel Shipyard
Emma Mærsk redefined what a container ship could be in 2006 — so much bigger than anything before her that the industry argued for years about how many boxes she actually carried.
Derived metrics
Computed by ships.fyi from the core specification — see how we calculate these.
How big is it, really?
The Emma Mærsk's length overall, against things you already know the size of.
The 747-8 bar is the longest airliner ever built — our sibling site aircraft.fyi measures everything that flies the same way.
One Emma Mærsk = 1.48 Titanics · 3.8 football pitches · 16 blue whales · 5.2 Boeing 747-8s laid end to end.
The numbers
| Length overall | 397.71 m |
|---|---|
| Beam | 56.4 m |
| Capacity | 11,000 TEU (Maersk's method) / ≈15,500 TEU (industry standard) |
| Gross tonnage | 170,794 GT |
| Deadweight | 156,907 t |
| Main engine | Wärtsilä 14RT-flex96C — 80,080 kW |
| Delivered | August 2006 |
| Flag | Denmark |
Put the Emma Mærsk next to something
Last verified: 2026-07-15 · Spot an error? business@luck.fyi
What makes it different
Emma Mærsk's arrival in 2006 was the single biggest jump in container-ship history: the largest ships then afloat carried around 9,500 TEU, and here was a hull the industry reckoned at roughly 15,500. Maersk insisted on 11,000 — counting only laden 14-tonne boxes, its own conservative method — and the resulting argument about her true size ran for years. Both numbers appear on her spec table above, because both are true on their own terms.
Her heart remains a record that still stands: the Wärtsilä 14RT-flex96C, a fourteen-cylinder, 2,300-tonne two-stroke producing 80,080 kW — the most powerful diesel engine ever built. She could run the Asia–Europe leg at 25 knots, a speed the slow-steaming era that followed made permanently unfashionable.
Built at Maersk's own Odense Steel Shipyard and named for the late wife of Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller, she was also a Danish swansong: the E class were among the final large ships from Odense before the yard closed in 2012, and the follow-on Triple-Es went to Korea.
The Emma Mærsk line
E class
Who operates the Emma Mærsk
All 1 operator of record, verified 2026-07-15. Figures marked ≈ are approximate.
MSKMaerskTwo decades on the Asia–Europe trade; still in Maersk service.1✓→