The E class comprises eight 14,770 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) container ships. Each sister ship bears a name beginning with the letter "E". Until 2012, they were the largest container ship ever constructed, and are among the longest ships currently in use at 398 metres (1,306 ft) long and 56 metres (184 ft) wide. They are owned by the Danish A. P. Moller-Maersk Group. The first in the class built was Emma Maersk by Odense Steel Shipyard Ltd., Denmark. The ships Emma, Estelle, and Eugen were subjects of TV documentaries. The E class was followed by the larger and more fuel efficient Triple E class.

Maersk Line is a Danish international container shipping company and the largest operating subsidiary of Maersk, a Danish business conglomerate. Founded in 1928, it is the world's second largest container shipping company by both fleet size and cargo capacity, offering regular services to 374 ports in 116 countries. In 2019, it employed 83,625 people where 18,398 of which are vessel crew and the other 65,227 are processing and operations personnel in offices and ports. Maersk Line operates over 708 vessels and has a total capacity of about 4.1 million TEU.