Texas and California boast several large seaports while the United States is one of the largest importer/exporter countries in the world. The state of Texas alone has the ports of Beaumont, Brownsville, Corpus Christi, Freeport, Galveston, Houston, Orange, Port Arthur and Texas City. The port of Houston is the 2nd busiest port in the US and is 12th busiest in the world. California has 11 public ports. Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland are considered megaports and handle over one quarter of all container cargo in the US. California also has 8 smaller ports located along its’ coastline.
To contrast the percentage of export cargo leaving the United States via shipping ports is approximately 73 percent. The United States is roughly 8 times the size of South Africa in landmass but exports about 15 times the amount of cargo than South Africa, in terms of value.
