Formation and evolution of world container ports system and coupling mechanism with international trade networks
世界集装箱港的形成演化及 与国际贸易的耦合机制

Marine container transportation is an important research field in Transportation Geography and has become the key support factors of international trade. In this paper, based on expounding about international and domestic research history of container seaports and seaports systems, the author took the world top 100 ports and data of the years of 1970-2003 as the studying objects, and discussed the developing and evolution course of world container seaports system.Then the author designed an index to appraise the spatial aggregration of world container transportation and container seaports, and their developing trends, including marine container transportation aggregration of port, region and country.In order to examine the developing mechanism of world container seaports system, the author analyzed the spatial coupling mechanism between world container seaports and international trade networks, through analyzing the international trade O-D data of the years of 1970-2003.Through research, the author drew the following conclusions.(1)World container seaport system witnessed the development course of "North American and West European port cluster→North American, West European and East Asian port cluster→East Asian port cluster→Chinese port cluster ".(2)There is the time period of spatial aggregration and diffusion about the world sea container transportation and now in the initial stages of spatial aggregration time, and the East Asian region became the world container transportation center.(3)Economic factors, shipping lines and port locations are the main driving factors for the development and formation of the world container seaport system,especially there is a coupling mechanism between the international trade networks and world container seaport system.