Transport & space · 1956

Containerization

Malcom McLean ships standard steel boxes, cutting cargo handling costs by over 90 percent.

On 26 April 1956 the Ideal X carried 58 containers from Newark to Houston. Loading cost fell from about $5.86 per ton for loose cargo to about 16 cents. Containers made global supply chains and offshore manufacturing economical; about 90 percent of non-bulk goods now travel this way.

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What it built on 2

What it led to 1

ISO standard container 1968

Watch

Malcom McLean and Containerisation | MaerskMaersk · YouTube How containerization shaped the modern worldTED-Ed · YouTube

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

Merchandise exports as a share of world GDP Latest: 24.2 % of GDP (2014) Source: Our World in Data

World trade as a share of GDP since 1500 Latest: 1950-now (PWT): 57.8 % of GDP (2023) Source: Our World in Data

World GDP Latest: 180T int.-$ (2021) (2025) Source: Our World in Data