Top 100 Countries by Liner Shipping Connectivity Index: Latest Global Ranking
Why liner shipping connectivity is one of the clearest trade-competitiveness signals
Liner Shipping Connectivity Index, or LSCI, measures how well an economy is plugged into scheduled global container shipping networks. It does not tell you how many goods a country exports or how efficient every port is. It tells you whether carriers are calling often, with large ships, broad service coverage and enough network depth to connect local firms to the main trade lanes.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!That makes the indicator unusually useful. High connectivity tends to lower routing frictions, widen market access, support transshipment, and reduce the risk that trade flows depend on a single thin service pattern. For manufacturers, importers, freight forwarders and policymakers, LSCI is one of the fastest ways to separate deep maritime hubs from economies that still sit on the edge of the liner network.
The table below uses the 2024-Q1 cross-country snapshot so the ranking and year-over-year changes sit on one consistent basis. UNCTAD’s 2025 publications provide broader context for how the same hierarchy looked later in the year.
What stands out immediately in the top of the ranking
The upper end of the distribution is heavily concentrated in Asia and in large network economies. China is alone at the frontier, while the next positions are filled by a mix of transshipment hubs, advanced manufacturing exporters and broad gateway systems. The top 10 in this snapshot account for roughly 30.4% of all reported LSCI points, and the top 20 are close to 47.8%. That concentration matters: a relatively small group of economies anchors a large share of the world’s container network depth.
China
China sits far above every other economy because it combines scale, dense port coverage, large deployed vessel capacity and a deep web of direct services. No other country matches the breadth of its liner network across export gateways and transshipment nodes.
South Korea
South Korea remains a front-rank maritime economy thanks to a strong container gateway system, major transshipment activity and close integration with Northeast Asian production chains.
Singapore
Singapore’s position reflects pure hub strength: frequent services, dense route options and exceptional connectivity to east–west and intra-Asian trades. Its index is far above what population size alone would suggest.
United States
The United States ranks high because it combines large Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf gateways with broad carrier coverage. Even so, its network profile differs from Asian hub economies because traffic is spread across a wide coastal system.
Malaysia
Malaysia’s result shows the importance of hub-and-spoke logistics in Southeast Asia. High connectivity is supported by transshipment-heavy operations and strong links to the main Asia–Europe and trans-Pacific corridors.
Japan
Japan remains one of the most connected maritime markets in the world, with high vessel capacity, extensive carrier presence and dense links to regional manufacturing and consumer demand.
Vietnam
Vietnam’s strong ranking reflects its rapid rise as a manufacturing and export platform. Connectivity has strengthened alongside the country’s growing role in Asian supply chains and containerized trade.
Spain
Spain is the leading European economy in this snapshot, helped by major Mediterranean and Atlantic gateways that connect Europe with Africa, the Americas and Asia.
Hong Kong
Hong Kong remains one of the world’s most connected liner nodes because of its long-established role in regional transshipment and high-frequency container services.
Netherlands
The Netherlands stays near the global top tier because its port system is a principal entry point for European trade. Strong hinterland integration helps convert maritime access into continent-wide distribution strength.
Table 1. Top 10 economies by Liner Shipping Connectivity Index
| Rank | Economy | LSCI value | YoY change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | China | 1,187.09 | +2.71% |
| 2 | South Korea | 640.27 | +6.50% |
| 3 | Singapore | 591.32 | +1.03% |
| 4 | United States | 493.77 | −3.26% |
| 5 | Malaysia | 484.77 | +1.14% |
| 6 | Japan | 420.86 | +4.76% |
| 7 | Vietnam | 405.74 | +0.99% |
| 8 | Spain | 403.56 | +1.04% |
| 9 | Hong Kong | 389.58 | −3.52% |
| 10 | Netherlands | 377.62 | −3.26% |
YoY compares Q1 2024 with Q1 2023. The full 100-country ranking appears below.
Chart 1. Top 20 economies by LSCI
China is such a large outlier that a single-scale bar chart makes the rest of the ranking look compressed and visually useless. A cleaner reading is to separate the leader from the chasing pack and compare positions 2–20 on their own scale.
China is far ahead of every other economy in this snapshot. It combines unmatched port scale, route density and carrier depth across the main global container corridors.
Positions 2–20 on a comparable scale
Separating the outlier from the rest makes the top 20 much easier to compare.
Methodology
UNCTAD’s Liner Shipping Connectivity Index is designed to capture how strongly an economy is integrated into global container shipping networks. The indicator is built from the structure of liner services rather than from trade value alone. In practice, that means the ranking reacts to the number of ships and services, deployed capacity, maximum vessel size, the breadth of direct links and the carrier presence behind those links.
The table on this page uses the 2024-Q1 quarterly cross-country snapshot because it provides a consistent base for a full 100-economy ranking. Year-on-year change is calculated against 2023-Q1. Values are shown as index points with two decimals, and the optional “share of covered total” view is included only to help readers compare rows within the table; it is not a measure of world trade share.
UNCTAD’s 2025 Review of Maritime Transport and Handbook of Statistics help place the Q1 2024 ranking in broader context. They show that Asia remained the dominant region later in 2025 and that the same leading maritime anchors stayed near the top. The main limitation is that LSCI is a network indicator: it says a great deal about access and service depth, but not everything about inland logistics, customs performance, port productivity or exporter profitability.
Insights
The ranking is not a simple proxy for GDP size. Small hub economies can rank far above much larger countries because liner networks reward route density, transshipment function and service regularity. That is why Singapore and Malaysia sit so high, and why some resource-rich but less networked exporters do not.
Europe’s strength is concentrated in gateway economies rather than spread evenly across the continent. Spain and the Netherlands sit noticeably higher than many peers because they are not just domestic markets; they are routing platforms for wider regional trade. In the Americas, the United States dominates on system breadth, while Panama plays an outsized connectivity role because of its canal position and transshipment function.
The middle of the table is where industrial catch-up becomes most visible. Economies such as Vietnam, India, Morocco, Egypt and the Philippines matter because they are not only moving cargo; they are becoming harder to bypass in global manufacturing and distribution strategies.
FAQ
Does a higher LSCI mean a country exports more?
No. A higher LSCI means the country is better connected to liner networks. Trade volumes may be high for other reasons, and some exporters still rely on relatively thin shipping networks.
Why is China so far ahead?
Because it combines huge container demand with multiple globally important port clusters, dense service frequency and strong direct links across all major trade lanes. The result is network depth that other economies struggle to match.
Why do small hubs rank above some larger economies?
LSCI rewards network position, not just domestic market size. A compact transshipment hub can rank very high if it concentrates carrier calls, vessel capacity and direct services into a small set of extremely active ports.
Is LSCI the same thing as port efficiency?
No. A country can be highly connected and still face congestion, customs bottlenecks or inland transport problems. LSCI shows the depth of liner network access, not the full quality of logistics execution.
Can the ranking move quickly from one year to the next?
Yes, especially where direct calls expand, vessel size jumps, or carriers re-route services because of new terminals, conflict, drought, canal disruptions or shifts in sourcing patterns.
Should LSCI be read together with other indicators?
Absolutely. Port throughput, customs efficiency, hinterland infrastructure, logistics costs and trade composition are all needed to turn a connectivity score into a full competitiveness judgment.
