Academic tool

US Place Atlas

Trace US ocean imports by port of entry, by consignee city and state (the importer address on the bill), or by shipper city (the foreign factory address). Cluster maps sit on every slice. Click a row to go one step deeper. The URL is the citation.

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

Port of entry · Where the vessel cleared Consignee city · US importer address Shipper city · Foreign production address

Methods (read before you cite)

  • US Customs ocean Bills of Lading only. Air, truck, rail, and informal entries are out of sample.
  • Port of entry is unloading_port (code, city, ST). That is where the vessel cleared, not the consignee headquarters.
  • Consignee and shipper city/state/zip/country are parsed from consignee_address and shipper_address and stored on kirchner.bols. Bills without a parseable US state+ZIP drop out of consignee-place slices. Shipper country falls back to the filed origin country when the address has no country token.
  • Coordinates prefer a Census street geocode of the full address when it exists; otherwise a US ZIP centroid or a GeoNames city centroid. consignee_geo_precision / shipper_geo_precision is street, zip, or city. Maps cluster those points.
  • Production partners are distinct shipper_name strings. Parties are filing names, not resolved legal entities.
  • Every number below is from the SQL printed under it. Nothing is imputed.

Start from a worked example

Consignee

California importers

Drill by the address on the bill — LA, City of Industry, Ontario — not the port the box cleared.

Shipper

Vietnam factories

Production cities parsed from shipper_address, then the US importers they ship to.

Port of entry

Savannah, Georgia

The gateway itself: who receives through it, and where those consignees actually sit.
Reset place
Origin: DE, GERMANY ×

United States

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

Unique BOLs

240,398

US importers

27,296

Production partners

24,524

Origin countries

1

US consignees

Clustered by parsed consignee city / ZIP. Circle size is unique bills.

Foreign production

Clustered by parsed shipper city. Circle size is unique bills.

No geocoded shipper points in this slice.

Census regions

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

Place BOLs Share
South 156,071
Northeast 70,895
West 12,709
Midwest 371

Products in this place

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

  1. 1. 8415 AUTOMOTIVE PARTS 12,128
  2. 2. 8512 MOTOR VEHICLE PARTS 4,608
  3. 3. 8483 AUTOMOTIVE SPARE PARTS 4,526
  4. 4. 8708 EXHAUST MANIFOLD 4,312
  5. 5. 2103 PARTS FOR THE U.S. PRODUCTION OF MB SPRINT 3,572
  6. 6. 3901 VAN VIN: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 3,508
  7. 7. 9818 LOCOMOTIVE SPARE PARTS 3,263
  8. 8. 9022 DEUTSCHE KUCHE 4 X HARVEST VEGETABLE SOUP 3,046
  9. 9. 9403 FURNITURE 3,041
  10. 10. 8482 BEARINGS 3,016
  11. 11. 7318 SCREWS AND BOLTS OF IRON OR STEEL 2,984
  12. 12. 8474 C O N F E C T I O N A R Y MRN DE B RETAIL 2,975

Origin countries

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

  1. 1. DE, GERMANY 240,398

Cite this query

Kirchner Data. Place Atlas: United States, 2026–2026, origin DE, GERMANY. Retrieved 2026-08-23 from https://kirchnerdata.com/research-atlas?from=2026&origin=DE%2C+GERMANY&to=2026. Universe: US ocean Bills of Lading (CBP), table kirchner.bols. Place mode: port. Consignee/shipper city, state, zip, country, and coordinates are stored columns parsed from the filing address.

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) != '' AND country = 'DE, GERMANY'
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 country = 'DE, GERMANY' AND length(replaceAll(hs_code, '.', '')) >= 4 GROUP BY hs4 ORDER BY bols DESC LIMIT 12
origins · 1 row 
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 country = 'DE, GERMANY' 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
map_consignees · 400 rows 
SELECT consignee_city AS city, consignee_state AS state, consignee_zip AS zip, any(consignee_lat) AS lat, any(consignee_lon) AS lon, any(consignee_geo_precision) AS precision, 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 country = 'DE, GERMANY' AND consignee_lat != 0 AND consignee_lon != 0 GROUP BY city, state, zip ORDER BY bols DESC LIMIT 400
map_shippers · 0 rows 
SELECT shipper_city AS city, shipper_country AS country, any(shipper_lat) AS lat, any(shipper_lon) AS lon, any(shipper_geo_precision) AS precision, 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 country = 'DE, GERMANY' AND shipper_lat != 0 AND shipper_lon != 0 AND shipper_city != '' GROUP BY city, country ORDER BY bols DESC LIMIT 400
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) != '' AND country = 'DE, GERMANY' GROUP BY name ORDER BY bols DESC