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

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

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.

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 FLOOR STANDING RACKS METAL,.. 270,191
  3. 3. 3922 SHOWER DOOR SHOWER DOOR SHOWER DOOR SHOWER 196,872
  4. 4. 4819 STORAGE BOX 157,391
  5. 5. 5513 PILLOW POLYESTER FIBER,.. 144,228
  6. 6. 8516 TRAVEL BAG SYNTHETIC FIBER,.. 133,344
  7. 7. 3907 CARPET POLYESTER,.. 127,640
  8. 8. 7204 STORAGE SHELVES STAINLESS STEEL, . . 109,478
  9. 9. 9503 JIGSAW PUZZLE,.. 107,325
  10. 10. 8474 NEW PNEUMATIC TIRES AS PER INVOICE NO. SE 102,400
  11. 11. 8428 HIGH CHAIR 99,973
  12. 12. 6306 WEARING APPAREL GOODS 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?from=2026&place=port&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) != ''
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
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 consignee_lat != 0 AND consignee_lon != 0 GROUP BY city, state, zip ORDER BY bols DESC LIMIT 400
map_shippers · 400 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 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) != '' GROUP BY name ORDER BY bols DESC