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Comment by ohples | Hacker News Reader

One thing I learned from reading about this is that Rotterdam is the destination of a large amount of China to Europe trade.

Is there really not a suitably developed Mediterranean port closer to Suez? Is there work on one?

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There's no reason to do this. Shipping cost is disproportionately affected by loading/unloading, and every other type of transport is more expensive (per mile travelled). So what you actually want to do is take the ship as close as possible to the goods' final destination, and minimize trucking and rail and so on.

I'm not sure exactly where the "economic center" of Europe is but maps of gridded GDP [0] or nightlights [1] suggests Rotterdam is a pretty good choice.

(Also don't forget the Alps.)

[0] https://bit.ly/31h1hsK [1] https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2012/03/Night_ligh...

I think the issue here is how well connected such a port would be. From Rotterdam you can go all the way to Germany through a river. Not sure you could do the same from a port in the Mediterranean, as the terrain tends to be mountainous there.

The Danube river flows into the Black Sea from Germany, though I have no idea if it's navigable for ships of the same size as would go to Rotterdam. Nothing from the Mediterranean.

The issue is that north north west europe is densely populated, and well developed, metropolitan as you say, highly urbanized and comparably wealthy.

Add to that, the Dutch have been a maritime nation at least since colonial times.

While one of the biggest ports lies at the footsteps of Athens, the economic power of neighbourg countries is not quite as strong.

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