Kingdom
Container Ports: Tanger Med Consolidates Its 17th Place Worldwide
With 11.1 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) handled in 2025, the port strengthens its position as the largest port in the Mediterranean and Africa, according to the latest ranking by the specialized firm Alphaliner. The Moroccan port has recorded the strongest growth among the global top 30 since 2019.
The four container terminals of the Tanger Med port complex handled 11,106,164 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) in 2025, an increase of 8.4% compared to 2024. This performance allows the Moroccan port to consolidate its position as the 17th largest container port in the world, according to the annual benchmark ranking published by the consulting firm Alphaliner, whose latest edition has just been released.
The specialized firm highlights Tanger Med’s remarkable growth trajectory: since 2019, the complex has seen its traffic increase by 131.3%, rising from 4.8 million TEUs to over 11 million—making it the highest growth rate among the world’s top 30 ports over this six-year period. The Moroccan port has thus seen its container traffic multiply by 2.3 in just six years, an unmatched performance. Even China’s Tanjung Pelepas port, with growth of 54.5% since 2019, or Malaysia’s Ningbo Zhoushan port, with 59.3%, fall far short of matching the expansion of the Moroccan hub.
Alphaliner notes that in 2025, global container traffic experienced serious operational disruptions, notably due to major route diversions following the closure of the Red Sea, the threat and temporary imposition of tariffs by the United States in April, and the resulting redistribution of freight, particularly in Southeast Asia.
Transshipment hubs were the main beneficiaries of this reconfiguration of global maritime flows. In the Mediterranean, Tanger Med and Valencia are the two ports that, according to Alphaliner, have benefited from the reshaping of shipping routes. The case of Tanger Med is particularly striking given the scale of its cumulative growth.
It is worth noting that the Port of Shanghai retains first place in the global container port ranking, with 55 million TEUs, a 6.9% increase, widening the gap with Singapore, which ranks second with 44.6 million TEUs after an 8.6% increase. Overall, Asian ports dominate the global top 10.
It should also be noted that Tanger Med is the only Mediterranean and African port featured in the global top 30.
