Academic tool

US Place Atlas

Trace US ocean imports from a census region down to a state, a port city, a company, and the individual bill of lading. At every level you see the product mix and the foreign production partners. Click a row to go one step deeper. The URL is the citation.

All research tools · Research Desk · Universe: kirchner.bols

Methods (read before you cite)

  • US Customs ocean Bills of Lading only. Air, truck, rail, and informal entries are out of sample.
  • Place is the port of entry on the bill (unloading_port), parsed as code, city, ST. That is where the vessel cleared, not the consignee’s headquarters. A California retailer can receive through Savannah.
  • Regions are US Census regions built from that port state. “City” here means the named gateway (Long Beach, Houston, Savannah), not a consignee street city.
  • Production partners are distinct shipper_name strings and origin country as filed. Parties are filing names, not resolved legal entities.
  • Products are 4-digit HS prefixes as filed, with a sample product_desc. Keyword filters use case-insensitive tokens in the description.
  • Every number below is from the SQL printed under it. Nothing is imputed.

Start from a worked example

Region

West Coast gateways

California, Washington, and Oregon ports, then down to Long Beach or Los Angeles and the firms behind them.

State × product

California furniture

Which CA gateways take furniture, which US buyers, and which foreign factories ship it.

Port city

Savannah, Georgia

The South Atlantic gateway: importers, HS mix, and production partners on one screen.
Reset place

United States

Retrieved 2026-08-23 UTC from kirchner.bols.

Unique BOLs

11,431,327

US importers

702,463

Production partners

574,859

Origin countries

229

Census regions

Click a row to drill down. Bars are unique bills in this slice.

Place BOLs Share
West 6,951,433
South 2,692,531
Northeast 1,682,480
Midwest 3,304

Products in this place

HS-4 as filed. Click to keep this geography and filter the product.

  1. 1. 9401 SEAT CUSHION POLYESTER FIBER,.. 315,303
  2. 2. 9403 BOOKSHELF 270,191
  3. 3. 3922 PLASTIC LAMPDOORBELLHAIRPINWOVEN TROUSERSK 196,872
  4. 4. 4819 STORAGE BOX 157,391
  5. 5. 5513 PILLOW POLYESTER FIBER,.. 144,228
  6. 6. 8516 STORAGE CABINET 133,344
  7. 7. 3907 CARPET POLYESTER,.. 127,640
  8. 8. 7204 STAINLESS STEEL SINK HTS C ODE: STAINLESS 109,478
  9. 9. 9503 EDUCATIONAL TOYS 107,325
  10. 10. 8474 S/S BRAIDED HOSE ELECTROLUX CONSUMER PRODU 102,400
  11. 11. 8428 PNEUMATIC ACTUATOR 99,973
  12. 12. 6306 TENTS 99,522

Origin countries

Where the cargo is filed as coming from. Click to keep this geography and filter origin.

  1. 1. CN, CHINA 6,621,942
  2. 2. VN, VIET NAM 753,306
  3. 3. IN, INDIA 375,978
  4. 4. KR, REPUBLIC OF KOREA 288,700
  5. 5. TH, THAILAND 282,342
  6. 6. DE, GERMANY 240,398
  7. 7. TW, TAIWAN 207,984
  8. 8. IT, ITALY 198,463
  9. 9. ID, INDONESIA 161,622
  10. 10. JP, JAPAN 152,680
  11. 11. KH, CAMBODIA 115,832
  12. 12. MY, MALAYSIA 110,403

Cite this query

Kirchner Data. Place Atlas: United States, 2026–2026. Retrieved 2026-08-23 from https://kirchnerdata.com/research-atlas. Universe: US ocean Bills of Lading (CBP), table kirchner.bols. Place is unloading_port (port of entry).

SQL that produced these numbers

totals · 1 row 
SELECT uniqExact(bill_of_lading) AS bols, uniqExact(consignee_name) AS firms, uniqExact(shipper_name) AS partners, uniqExact(country) AS origins, uniqExact(unloading_port) AS ports, round(sum(weight_in_kg)) AS kg FROM bols WHERE (actual_arrival_date >= toDate('2026-01-01') AND actual_arrival_date <= toDate('2026-12-31')) AND trimBoth(unloading_port) != ''
products · 12 rows 
SELECT substring(replaceAll(hs_code, '.', ''), 1, 4) AS hs4, anyHeavy(product_desc) AS sample, uniqExact(bill_of_lading) AS bols FROM bols WHERE (actual_arrival_date >= toDate('2026-01-01') AND actual_arrival_date <= toDate('2026-12-31')) AND trimBoth(unloading_port) != '' AND length(replaceAll(hs_code, '.', '')) >= 4 GROUP BY hs4 ORDER BY bols DESC LIMIT 12
origins · 12 rows 
SELECT country AS name, uniqExact(bill_of_lading) AS bols, uniqExact(shipper_name) AS partners FROM bols WHERE (actual_arrival_date >= toDate('2026-01-01') AND actual_arrival_date <= toDate('2026-12-31')) AND trimBoth(unloading_port) != '' AND trimBoth(country) != '' AND lengthUTF8(trimBoth(country)) >= 3 AND upperUTF8(trimBoth(country)) NOT IN ('N/A','NA','NONE','NULL','UNKNOWN','-','--','N.A.') GROUP BY name ORDER BY bols DESC LIMIT 12
places · 5 rows 
SELECT (CASE WHEN upperUTF8(trim(extract(trimBoth(unloading_port), ',\\s*([A-Z]{2})\\s*$'))) IN ('CT','ME','MA','NH','RI','VT','NJ','NY','PA') THEN 'northeast' WHEN upperUTF8(trim(extract(trimBoth(unloading_port), ',\\s*([A-Z]{2})\\s*$'))) IN ('IL','IN','MI','OH','WI','IA','KS','MN','MO','NE','ND','SD') THEN 'midwest' WHEN upperUTF8(trim(extract(trimBoth(unloading_port), ',\\s*([A-Z]{2})\\s*$'))) IN ('DE','FL','GA','MD','NC','SC','VA','DC','WV','AL','KY','MS','TN','AR','LA','OK','TX') THEN 'south' WHEN upperUTF8(trim(extract(trimBoth(unloading_port), ',\\s*([A-Z]{2})\\s*$'))) IN ('AZ','CO','ID','MT','NV','NM','UT','WY','AK','CA','HI','OR','WA') THEN 'west' ELSE 'other' END) AS name, uniqExact(bill_of_lading) AS bols, uniqExact(upperUTF8(trim(extract(trimBoth(unloading_port), ',\\s*([A-Z]{2})\\s*$')))) AS states, uniqExact(unloading_port) AS ports, uniqExact(consignee_name) AS firms, uniqExact(shipper_name) AS partners FROM bols WHERE (actual_arrival_date >= toDate('2026-01-01') AND actual_arrival_date <= toDate('2026-12-31')) AND trimBoth(unloading_port) != '' GROUP BY name ORDER BY bols DESC