China’s mainland coast is over 18,000 km long,
and its rivers total 220,000 km in length. Such excellent
natural conditions provide convenience for developing inland
river transport and ocean shipping. The major inland
navigable rivers in China are the Yangtze, the Pearl, the
Heilongjiang, the Huaihe, the Qiantang, the Minjiang and the
Huangpu, not forgetting the Grand Canal between Beijing and
Hangzhou. In 1999, navigable inland waterways in China
totaled 110,300 km, the volume of cargo transportation was
2,126.3 billion tons/km, and the volume of passenger
transportation was 10.73 billion persons/km.
Now there are more
than 5,000 berths at some 70 major inland river ports. The
Yangtze, the “golden waterway” of China’s
inland river transport, has considerable annual volume of
both freight and passenger transport. Nanjing Harbor, the
largest river harbor in China, has an annual capacity of
more than 40 million tons. Ocean shipping in China is
divided into two major navigation zones: the northern and
the southern ones. The northern one has Shanghai and Dalian
as the centers, and the southern one has Guangzhou as the
center. Harbors (including inland river ports) built after
1978 have an annual capacity of 497.26 million tons. There
are more than 20 major coastal harbors in China, with an
annual capacity of 1.05 billion tons, and the passenger
turnover of 64.01 million Shanghai Harbor ranks among the 10
largest trade harbors in the world, with an annual capacity
of over 100 million tons. China has an ocean fleet with a
capacity of 22 million tons of goods, sailing among 1,100
harbors worldwide.
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