Port of Los Angeles

The Port of Los Angeles, at San Pedro Bay, is the busiest container port in the Western Hemisphere and, together with the adjacent Port of Long Beach, forms the principal gateway for transpacific trade into the United States.

Transpacific gateway

The port’s container volumes are dominated by imports from East Asia, landed and moved inland by an extensive network of rail and trucking connections reaching across the country. Its capacity and congestion levels are closely watched as a bellwether for U.S. consumer import demand, and backlogs here during periods of high demand — most visibly in 2021 — have had knock-on effects across global container shipping schedules and rates.

Operation

The port is owned by the City of Los Angeles and operated as a landlord port, leasing terminals to private container, bulk, and automobile-handling operators rather than running cargo operations itself.