Freeport of Riga
Port in Riga, Latvia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Riga Free Port (Latvian: Rīgas brīvosta) is a major port on the east coast of the Baltic Sea, located in Riga, the capital of Latvia.[1] It stretches for 15 km (9.3 mi) along both banks of the Daugava. Within the city limits, the area of the port is 1,962 ha (4,850 acres), with a water area of 6,348 ha (15,690 acres). Navigation is carried out year-round. Most of the cargo turnover is made up of transit cargo to and from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The main objects of cargo handling are coal, oil products, timber, fertilizer and container cargo.[2] While the Ventspils Free Port and Liepaja Port specialize in export, a significant part of the activities of the Freeport of Riga is import. In the early 2000s, the goods arriving at the Riga port amounted to 70 percent of the incoming freight turnover of all the Latvian ports taken together.[3]
Latvia| Freeport of Riga | |
|---|---|
 Interactive map of Freeport of Riga | |
  Location within Latvia | |
| Location | |
| Country | Latvia |
| Coordinates | 56°58′48″N 24°05′34″E |
| Statistics | |
| Website www | |
In 2012, the Freeport of Riga took fourth place in overall cargo turnover among the ports of the eastern Baltic (after Primorsk, St. Petersburg and Ust-Luga) and third place in container freight turnover (after St. Petersburg and Klaipeda).[4]
History
Since its foundation, Riga was primarily a trading and transshipment point, so its development was directly related to maritime trade. The first harbor for settlement was the so-called Riga lake – the extension of the river Daugava.
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In the late 15th and early 16th centuries, the city's main port moved to the Daugava. The basis of commodity turnover at this time was fabrics, metal, salt and fish. Over the next 150 years, the city passed successively into the hands of the Rzeczpospolita (1582),[5] Sweden (1629)[6] and Russian Empire (1721). In the Russian Empire, the port played an important role: at the beginning of the 20th century it occupied third place among the state's ports in terms of foreign trade and first in timber exports. During each of the world wars, the city fell under German occupation. Before that, the port equipment was evacuated, and some buildings were destroyed. During the years of Soviet power, the port expanded: the container terminal, built in the early 1980s on the island of Kundziņsala, at the time of commissioning was one of the largest in the USSR.
With the arrival of Latvia's independence, the modern history of the port began.
Port turnover
| Year | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Port turnover, thousands tonnes[7] | 24429.1 | 25357.6 | 25932.8 | 29565.9 | 29723.4 | 30475.6 | 34072.1 | 36051.9 | 35466.7 | 41080.4 | 40055.8 | 37070.3 | 33674.7 | 36400 | 32800 | 23700 | 18790 |