International trade, illustrated

From Gizmodo:

The New Backbone of International Trade Is the Single Biggest Movable Thing We’ve Ever Built 

You won't have any trouble finding thisMarco Polo in the pool—even with your eyes closed. Five Airbus a380s lined up nose-to-tail still wouldn't match the length, much less the overwhelming mass, of the world's largest container ship. 

The CMA CGM Marco Polo is the largest container ship ever constructed, capable of transporting 16,020 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit, the standard of international shipping containers) of cargo—820 more the Emma Maersk's previous record and a tenfold capacity increase from the 1980s. At 1300 feet long and 178 feet wide with a 52 foot draft and 187,625 dead weight tonnage, it's also the largest human construct to ever move across the planet's surface. It's larger than both the Queen Mary 2 and the Charles de Gaulle, even America'sNimitz-Class super carriers. Slap the Empire State building and the Eiffel Tower together—this ship is still bigger. 

Built by South Korea's DSME (Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering) and operated by CMA CGM, a French shipping company, the Marco Polo entered service in November of last year. It transports goods along the French Asia Line (FAL1), an international shipping route that runs from Shanghai, through the Mediterranean, and up the coast of Western Europe to Hamburg.