Port of Djibouti

Port of Djibouti
The container terminal at the Port of Djibouti.
Location
Country	Djibouti
Location	Djibouti City
Details
Operated by	Djibouti Ports & Free Zones Authority
Website www.portdedjibouti.com

The Port of Djibouti is a port in Djibouti City, the capital of Djibouti. It is strategically located at the crossroads of one of the busiest shipping routes in the world, linking Europe, the Far East, the Horn of Africa and the Persian Gulf. The port serves as a key refueling and transshipment center, and is the principal maritime outlet for imports to and exports from neighboring Ethiopia.

Seventy percent of the cargo at the port is shipped to or from Ethiopia, accounting for over 95% of Ethiopia's foreign trade. The port lost its direct railway access to Ethiopia when the Ethio-Djibouti Railway was abandoned. The Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway, opened in 2017, runs to the nearby Port of Doraleh.

The port's strategic location on the Gulf of Aden makes it an important military outpost for the Great Powers. Several berths at the port are reserved for the use of the United States Navy and the French Navy. The Chinese Navy also uses the Port of Djibouti, but it is moving to a dedicated facility at the nearby Port of Doraleh.

Djibouti as a main maritime passage and a main trading route between East and West stretches back 3,500 years, the time of maritime explorations of the Red Sea. A strategic meeting point between Northeast Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, the Red Sea was a place of contact and passage used by the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, the Ptolemaists, the Romans, the Greeks, the Byzantines, the Arabs, and then by the Europeans in search of the Spice route. Its apogee came with the opening of the Suez Canal.