Port

Ports are any place where ships dock on the coast of an ocean, river, or lake. A ship will dock at a port to unload or load any cargo or passengers aboard. As such, ports play a crucial role in transporting goods and raw materials. Often a port will be categorized by its purpose, for example, a cargo port or a military port. While ports can be defined as any harbor or area that is able to provide shelter to numerous boats and vessels, in the modern context most ports are well-equipped specialized areas with fixtures to facilitate the regular dealings with cargo. Ports tend to be controlled by a port authority. This authority regulates the prices to ensure uniformity and safety of goods, cargos, and passengers. The authority is also usually a national or governmental authority responsible for constructing and maintaining crucial aspects of trade and transportation on the seaports.

The port of Chennai, India, built in an artificial harbor.

Ports have been of great importance to nations, as they promote commercial welfare and the trade scenario. Ports are also of military importance, as they facilitate the movement of military vessels and materials in and out of battle areas. Ports have been classified into different terms based on their geographical and man-made features. These include harbors, ports, terminals, berths, quays, piers, and jetties.

There are four major elements of a port. These include maritime access, maritime interfaces, infrastructures and equipment, and land access.

The maritime access of a port refers to the capacity of a site to accommodate ship operations. This includes the tidal range, especially as most ship operations cannot handle variations of more than 3 meters. Channel and berth depths are also important to accommodate modern ships that can need as much as 12 meters, or 40 feet, of depth or draft, while many ports have depths of less than 10 meters. Many ports are also impacted by sedimentation and require continuous dredging. Other considerations of a port will be the impact of periods of flooding or drought, or whether they can be impeded by winter conditions, such as ice buildup. And an inland port (such as at the end of a bay or river) can bring cargo closer to the final market, but may cause longer deviations from shipping routes.

Example of a maritime interface.

A maritime interface refers to the amount of space that is available to support maritime operations, such as the amount of shoreline with good access. This attribute is crucial since ports tend to be linear entities. And where a port may have plenty of maritime access, it may lack maritime interface or the land available to guarantee the development and expansion of the port and its ability to move large amounts of goods.

Any port requires infrastructure for piers, basins, stacking or storage areas, warehouses, and other equipment, such as cranes. All of these features require high amounts of capital investment, and they consume land that must be available in order to to ensure port expansion. As well, with many modern container terminals, the land and equipment required are substantial in order for the port and terminal to operate.

Access from the port to industrial complexes and markets allows a port to grow and increase the port's importance. This requires efficient inland distribution systems, such as fluvial barges, rail unit trains, and roads handling heavy truck traffic. Land access to ports in densely populated areas faces increasing congestion, although ports such as Los Angeles, Long Beach, Rotterdam, and Antwerp have developed inland barge and rail shuttle services to work around that congestion.

Ports offer various parts of importance. For example, ports offer employment opportunities for people to work at them, especially as ports continue to require high numbers of human labor. Ports offer socio-economic development opportunities, as they serve as a link for foreigners to connect to neighboring or international cities for trade activities. The greater number of ports a country owns or runs, the more likely it is that trade is higher with its neighboring countries. This often ties the number of a country's ports to its overall GDP.

As well, transportation by sea tends to be continued to be seen as the cheapest means of conveying goods from one place to another, and more environmentally friendly than other methods of transporting goods. And a port is a major trade center that helps bring in consumer and industrial goods to help a nation make transactions with other regions around the world.

A port of call is any intermediate stop for a ship on its journey. This stop can be for any cargo operation or taking on supplies or fuel. A port of call can also be defined as the port of a country where cargo or passenger ships halt. The term remains rather limited, and a technical term used in all official shipping documents. For example, a cruise ship's port of call is the premier stop where they take on passengers for a cruise holiday. Whereas for cargo ships, a port of call is a port that is attended within a voyage, whether it is to load or unload cargo, or for bunkering or repairs. If a ship-to-ship transfer occurs within a port of call, it is treated the same as the operation carried at berth.

A port authority is a government commission that manages the facilities of a port. The Port Authority is responsible for operating the port and the transportation infrastructure of that port and can be operated by the government or in cooperation with government agencies. Most port authorities are financially autonomous, and port districts tend to operate shipping terminals, airports, railroads, and irrigation facilities. A port authority often owns the land, will dictate any fees, and collect any taxes associated with shipping and the port.

A seaport is a node in the global supply chain with a strong maritime character and a functional and spatial clustering of port-related activities. A seaport is more than a load breakpoint in various supply chains, but is a value-adding transit point, as it offers a location that has a relative importance that can fluctuate given economic, technical, and political changes. Seaports are often defined by the diversity of their typologies, which are categorized by the scale, geographical attributes, governance and institutional settings, port functions, and specialization.

A dry port is a port that is away from the sea. It is generally more inland and connected to a seaport with either a paved road or railway. Dry ports serve as terminals where cargo can be brought from a seaport to be transhipped. These ports include storage facilities for massive quantities of goods and can be used for storage while those goods wait for clearance at customs.

Montreal port, the largest inland port.

Inland ports tend to be built on smaller bodies of water, such as rivers or lakes, and can be used for both cargo and passenger purposes. These ports are generally constructed on naturally maintained ports on the coastline of small waterways like lakes, rivers, or estuaries. They may have access to the sea with the help of canal systems, but tend to be built on inland waterways and do not allow for deep-draft ship traffic. Some of these ports are also used for recreational purposes only, such as for ferrying people or fishing activities, and are also referred to as dry ports as they can have similar functions, acting like intermodal hubs. The largest inland port is the port of Montreal.

The port of Sevastopol in Crimea, and under Russian control.

A warm-water port, also known as an ice-free port, is a port where the water does not freeze in the wintertime. This makes the port available year round, and they are of great geopolitical or economic interest. For example, Through its history and expansion, Russia has waged several wars that have included searches for warm-water ports. With a warm-water port, it is generally considered important to have a well-rounded economy. Despite this importance, ice-breakers and other technology have increased the capacity of seaports that suffer from ice buildup in winters, although this can be costly for the port to operate and break the ice during these periods.

Shanghai port, the largest cargo port in the world.

A cargo port, also known as a bulk port, break bulk port, or container port, is any port specially designed to handle containerized cargo. The ports are intended to include the equipment and facilities to enable shipping containers to switch methods, for example from a ship to train or trucking, to reach the final destination. A cargo port will also often serve as an area for the maintenance and temporary stowage of shipping containers. The unloading, loading, and storage of the cargo within these containers can also take place here.

A fishing port is a port or harbor that can be used for recreational and commercial fishing. Often, for a port to be called a fishing port, the focus is on commercial fishing, where fish are landed and distributed. The fishing port is the only port that depends on and focuses on an ocean product, and the depletion of fish can cause a fishing port to be uneconomical.