Article

Inside the pond: an analysis of Northeast Asia’s long-term maritime dynamics

César DUCRUET *
Author Information & Copyright
*French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) cdu@parisgeo.cnrs.fr

© Copyright 2021 Korea Maritime Institute. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Published Online: Dec 31, 2015

ABSTRACT

The analysis of historical vessel movements is proposed in this paper to compare recent Northeast Asian port and maritime dynamics with previous development stages back to the late nineteenth century. The changing distribution of vessel calls at and between Northeast Asian ports reveals important shifts of maritime connectivity over time, from the emergence of Japan as the dominant player in the region to a present-day more complex pattern with Hong Kong, Busan, and Shanghai as the major hubs. The analysis also underlines the uneven importance of domestic, intraregional, and extraregional flows as well as the existence of localized, peripheral subnetworks including small and medium-sized ports.

Keywords: historical geography; maritime network; Northeast Asia; port system; vessel movements