UTO Help: Selecting Ports

Help Topic:

USA Trade Online also allows you to track imports and exports traveling through more than 400 ports in the United States and its territories using the Port Selection screen. In the United States, ports include trade through airports, pipelines, roads, railroads, mail, as well as the more traditional sea-based ports. In the United States, physical ports are grouped into districts based on geography. The name of the district is the name of the primary port in that district. So the district of Baltimore, Maryland includes five ports: the cities of Annapolis, Baltimore, Cambridge, and Crisfield, and the Baltimore-Washington International Airport.

Figure A: Port Selection Screen with Baltimore, MD District Expanded

Two special ports -- Low-value and Vessels under their own power, such as exported or imported cruise ships -- are also defined for statistical purposes. For exports, there is also a Mail shipments port. While districts can include ports in one or more states, except for the special ports, ports are always state-specific.

Port-level trade includes seven measures:

Total Value ($US) is the value of trade from all shipping methods.
Vessel Value ($US) is the value of trade through vessel ports (seaborne trade).
Vessel SWT (kg) is the shipping weight of trade going through vessel ports (seaborne trade) expressed in kilograms. (The port-level data won't tell you the individual number of items shipped.)
Air Value ($US) is the value of trade through airborne carriers.
Air SWT (kg) is the shipping weight of trade carried by airborne carriers expressed in kilograms. (The port-level data won't tell you the individual number of items shipped.)
Containerized Vessel Value ($US) is the value of shipments transported in any van-type container. (Note that containerized vessel trade is already included in vessel trade above.)
Containerized Vessel SWT (kg) is the shipping weight of trade transported in any van-type container expressed in kilograms. (Note that containerized vessel trade is already included in vessel trade above.)

Unlike non-port data, port-level data is measured in terms of shipping weights (in kilograms), not numbers of items. These shipping weights are only provided for air, vessel, and containerized vessel shipments -- shipping weights are not provided for trade by truck, pipeline, mail, etc. (Air and vessel account for about 60 percent of U.S. exports and 70 percent of U.S. imports.)

Navigating the Port Selections
You can navigate through the Ports by clicking on the in front of a District to expand to view the ports grouped together. You may also select Ports by using the Search box at the top and hitting Enter or pressing the button. Note that the district and its main port have the same name even though they cover differ areas. To help you distinguish them, the district is identified with word "(District)" and the port is identified with the word "(Port)".

Other options include:

Level Selection: Under the "Levels:" title, you will see multiple and options. These allow you to select or de-select all items at a given level. If you hover your mouse over each, a pop-up box will tell you what clicking on them will select or de-select. Also, a grayed area will show up in the listing below which indicates what's affected. So if you want to select all individual ports, you can click the check box under the third column (the hover box says "Select All Individual Ports") and they'll be selected.
All Selection: To select or de-select everything in the Port dimension, click either the or under the "All:" title.
Range Selection. If you'd like to see information from all the Ports within a specific District, you should expand the District section by clicking on the beside your selected district. Then select the under the heading "Range...". Then click the first and the last Ports within your selected district. All the Ports in between will automatically be selected as well.

Helpful Hints and Related Information

USA Trade Online automatically saves any changes you make to your commodity, country, state, district or port (as applicable), and measures criteria before you view the resulting table. Only the "Advanced Selection" option in the time dimension requires you to save your changes first.
The United States actually has more than 400 ports. Major delivery services, such as FedEx and UPS, for example, have their own ports. However, ports are consolidated where necessary to prevent disclosure of possibly business confidential information. This explains why you won't see some ports that you'd expect to see -- Still can't find what you're looking for? Go to Frequently Asked Questions !