How many shipping containers are there?
How many shipping containers are there?
about 60 million TEU — roughly 38 million actual boxes
Stacked, 38 million containers would form a tower to the Moon and a third of the way back. The standardised box, introduced in 1956, cut the cost of loading a ship by more than 90%.
The global container fleet is measured in twenty-foot equivalent units, and stands at roughly 60 million TEU. Because most boxes are forty-foot, that translates to about 38 million physical containers. Around 250 million container movements happen each year, so the average box makes six or seven journeys annually. Roughly 1,000 to 1,500 containers are lost overboard each year — a fraction of a percent of movements, but it means several thousand boxes are on the sea floor.
How the figure is arrived at
The fleet is tracked by container census: leasing companies and shipping lines report their equipment holdings, and the total is cross-checked against manufacturer production — almost all containers are built in a handful of Chinese factories — minus estimated scrappage on a roughly 13-year life.
How confident it is
- Low estimate
- 34,000,000
- High estimate
- 42,000,000
- Spread
- 1.2× between the bounds
Other things people built counts
- How many countries are there in the world? 195 — or 193, or 206, or 249, depending on who is counting
- How many cars are there in the world? about 1.5 billion motor vehicles
- How many planes are in the air right now? roughly 10,000 to 20,000 at any moment
- How many languages are there in the world? about 7,150 living languages
- How many McDonald's are there? about 43,000 in over 100 countries
- How many phones are there in the world? about 8.9 billion mobile connections — more than there are people
- How many nuclear weapons are there? about 12,200 warheads
- How many websites are there? about 1.1 billion hostnames — but only around 200 million active
- How many books have ever been published? about 130 million as of 2010 — probably over 200 million now
- How many airports are there in the world? about 45,000 with runways — but only around 4,000 with scheduled airline service
- How many ATMs are there in the world? about 3 million
- How many cities are there in the world? about 10,000 with over 50,000 people; 33 megacities over 10 million
- How many buildings are there in the world? somewhere between 1.5 and 4 billion
- How many computers are there in the world? roughly 2 billion personal computers in use
Common questions
- How many shipping containers are there?
- about 60 million TEU — roughly 38 million actual boxes
- How is that estimated?
- The fleet is tracked by container census: leasing companies and shipping lines report their equipment holdings, and the total is cross-checked against manufacturer production — almost all containers are built in a handful of Chinese factories — minus estimated scrappage on a roughly 13-year life.
Related pages
- How many countries are there in the world? 195 — or 193, or 206, or 249, depending on who is counting
- How many cars are there in the world? about 1.5 billion motor vehicles
- How many planes are in the air right now? roughly 10,000 to 20,000 at any moment
- How many languages are there in the world? about 7,150 living languages
- How many McDonald's are there? about 43,000 in over 100 countries
- How many phones are there in the world? about 8.9 billion mobile connections — more than there are people
- How many nuclear weapons are there? about 12,200 warheads
- How many websites are there? about 1.1 billion hostnames — but only around 200 million active
- How many people are there in the world? Living things and the natural world
- How many stars are there in the universe? Space and the universe
- How many bones are in the human body? The human body
- How many grains of sand are there on Earth? Living things and the natural world
- How many ants are there in the world? Living things and the natural world
- How many trees are there in the world? Living things and the natural world
Sources
- Typical range compiled from manufacturer specifications — At One Place