Twenty-foot equivalent unit
The twenty-foot equivalent unit is a general unit of cargo capacity, often used for container ships and container ports. It is based on the volume of a 20-foot-long (6.1 m) intermodal container, a standard-sized metal box that can be easily transferred between different modes of transportation, such as ships, trains, and trucks.
A 20-foot-long (6.1 m) ISO container equals 1 TEU.
Two forty-foot containers stacked on top of two twenty-foot containers. These four containers represent 6 TEU.
Stacked top to bottom: 53 feet (16.15 m), 48 feet (14.63 m), 45 feet (13.72 m), 40 feet (12.19 m), and two end-to-end, 20 feet (6.10 m) containers
A container ship is a cargo ship that carries all of its load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. Container ships are a common means of commercial intermodal freight transport and now carry most seagoing non-bulk cargo.
Two Maersk Line container ships
Container ships avoid the complex stevedoring of break-bulk shipping
The earliest container ships were converted T2 tankers in the 1940s after World War II
Container ship Tan Cang 15 on the Saigon River in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
