Port of Hamburg – Germany’s largest container port for e-commerce imports

More than 70 percent of all the cargo is transported around the world in sea containers. Port of Hamburg is Germany’s largest and Europe’s 3rd largest container port which is an important distribution center for the flows of goods for e-commerce in Europe in general and for Germany – the largest e-commerce market in the EU – in particular.

In total 4 container terminals: EUROGATE Container Terminal Hamburg, HHLA Container Terminal Altenwerder, HHLA Container Terminal Burchardkai, HHLA Container Terminal Tollerort are able to process 12 million TEU (20-foot standard containers), large part of which are destined for Amazon fulfillment centers in the European Union.

The first modern container handling facility in the Port of Hamburg was Burchardkai which was opened in 1967. The first gantry cranes could handle 12 – 18 containers per hour, today they can handle up to twice as much. With one lift they can take two 40ft containers or four 20ft containers, a weight of 110 tons, that can be compared to 70 medium-sized cars. Container Terminal Burchardkai alone has 30 craines, 18 of them are ultra-large vessel cranes which can be used to load and discharge the largest container ships in the world.