Container ship

	Two Maersk Line container ships
Class overview
Name	Container ship
Subclasses	(1) Geared or gearless (as per cargo-handling type); (2) Freighter or pure container (as per passenger carrier-type); (3) Feeder or world-wide foreign-going vessel (as per trade); (4) Panamax or post-Panamax vessel (as per breadth of vessel < or > than 32.2m respectively);
Built	1956–present
In service	9,535 ships as of 2010
General characteristics
Propulsion	Typically diesel since 1990
Speed	Typically 16–25 knots (30–46 km/h) (19-29 mph)
Capacity	Up to 24,000 TEU
Notes	Reduced superstructure, containers stacked on deck, bulbous bow

A container ship (also called boxship or spelled containership) is a cargo ship that carries all of its load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. Container ships are a common means of commercial intermodal freight transport and now carry most seagoing non-bulk cargo.

Container ship capacity is measured in twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU). Typical loads are a mix of 20-foot (1-TEU) and 40-foot (2-TEU) ISO-standard containers, with the latter predominant.

Today, about 90% of non-bulk cargo worldwide is transported by container ships, the largest of which, from 2023 onward, can carry over 24,000 TEU.

^ UNCTAD, 2010, p. 33.
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[unctad33-1] UNCTAD, 2010, p. 33.

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