Office of Operations Freight Management and Operations

Figure 3-17: Top 25 U.S. Foreign-Trade Freight Gateways by Value: 2005 ($ Billions)

Transportation facilities for bringing international trade into and out of the United States demonstrate the importance of all modes and intermodal combinations to global connectivity. The top 25 foreign-trade gateways measured by value of shipments are comprised of 9 airports, 11 water ports, and 5 land-border crossings

See paragraph above and table below for explanation of Figure 3-17

Map in PDF format [2.5MB]

Data represented in the figure
Table in Excel format | Historical data

Gateway Type Rank Exports Imports Total
JFK International AirportAir159.375.6134.9
Port of Los AngelesWater218.4116.0134.4
Detroit bridgesLand368.861.7130.5
Port of New York and New JerseyWater426.2104.2130.4
Port of Long BeachWater521.2103.4124.6
Laredo bridgesLand640.952.893.7
Port of HoustonWater733.852.386.1
Chicago airportsAir829.144.373.4
Los Angeles International AirportAir936.536.472.9
Buffalo-Niagra Falls bridgesLand1032.538.070.5
Port Huron bridgesLand1123.644.668.2
San Francisco International AirportAir1225.232.057.2
Port of CharlestonWater1315.936.552.4
El Paso bridgesLand1418.924.143.0
Port of NorfolkWater1515.024.639.6
Port of BaltimoreWater168.627.035.6
Dallas-Fort Worth airportsAir1715.419.735.1
Port of SeattleWater187.727.335.0
Port of TacomaWater195.028.733.8
Port of SavannahWater2011.322.133.4
Port of OaklandWater218.923.732.6
Atlanta airportsAir2211.618.329.9
Anchorage airportsAir2311.618.329.9
New Orleans/Memphis airports1Air2411.817.929.7
Miami International AiportAir2517.89.727.4

1Includes all of Louis Armstrong international air cargo and Federal Express portion of Memphis, which are not separated in the reporting system.

Note: Data for all air gateways include a low level (generally less than 2%-3% of the total value) of small user-fee airports located in the same region. Air gateways not identified by airport name (e.g., Chicago, IL, and others) include major airport(s) in that geographic area in addition to small regional airports. In addition, due to Bureau of Census confidentiality regulations, data for courier operations are included in the airport totals for JFK International Airport, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Chicago, Miami, and Anchorage.

Source: U.S. Department of Transportation, Research and Innovative Technology Administration, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, National Transportation Statistics 2006 (Washington, DC: 2006), available at www.bts.gov as of October 16, 2006.


You will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the PDFs on this page.

To view Excel files, you can use the Microsoft Excel Viewer.

Office of Operations