In the below table, you can find our list of largest container vessels, in terms of TEU capacity, by year – the record breaking container vessel of the year.
The data it contains is based on our own research and publicly available information. It is often based on our interpretation of possibly diverging or even contradictory information and therefore may contain incorrect information or certain record breaking vessels may have been missed.
If you spot an issue, feel free to leave a comment with a reference link and we will be happy to fix it.
Feel free to re-use this data / table but please share this page or logisticselearning.com as its source.
If a year or multiple year windows are not listed it means that based on our information the previous record breaking vessel was still holding the record.
For example, American New York was the largest container vessel from 1984 until 1990 when Magleby was built.
This data is used in our article on the largest container ships and the evolution of container ships which can be found here.
| Year | Original name | IMO | TEU capacity |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1969 | Encounter bay | 6818461 | 1,530 |
| 1971 | Liverpool bay | 7126762 | 2,961 |
| 1972 | Hamburg express | 7129934 | 2,984 |
| 1980 | Neptune garnet | 7819371 | 3,268 |
| 1981 | Frankfurt express | 7909592 | 3,430 |
| 1984 | American New York | 8212611 | 4,614 |
| 1990 | Magleby | 8715871 | 4,819 |
| 1994 | NYK Altair | 9073995 | 4,953 |
| 1995 | APL China | 9074389 | 5,108 |
| 1996 | Regina Maersk | 9085522 | 6,418 |
| 1997 | Sovereign Maersk | 9120841 | 8,160 |
| 2003 | Anna Maersk | 9260421 | 8,272 |
| 2004 | CSCL Asia | 9285976 | 8,500 |
| 2005 | Gjertrud Mærsk | 9320233 | 9,074 |
| 2012 | CMA CGM Marco Polo | 9454436 | 16,020 |
| 2013 | Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller | 9619907 | 18,270 |
| 2014 | CSCL Globe | 9695121 | 19,100 |
| 2015 | MSC Oscar | 9703291 | 19,224 |
| 2016 | MSC Diana | 9755933 | 19,462 |
| 2017 | OOCL Hong Kong | 9776171 | 21,413 |
| 2019 | MSC Gülsün | 9839430 | 23,756 |
| 2020 | HMM Algeciras | 9863297 | 23,964 |
| 2021 | Ever Ace | 9893890 | 23,992 |
| 2022 | Ever Alot | 9893955 | 24,004 |
| 2023 | MSC Irina | 9929429 | 24,346 |
Recommended reading – “The evolution of container ships and their sizes“
