MarineTraffic is introducing Shipping Zones — a new geographic layer designed specifically around shipping and chartering activity.
Shipping Zones will replace the existing Trade Areas layer, providing a clearer and more relevant way to explore vessel positioning and activity across key maritime regions.
What are Shipping Zones?
Shipping Zones are geographic regions that group the world’s waters according to the way shipping and chartering professionals assess vessel positioning and regional activity.
Unlike legal or administrative boundaries, such as Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs), Shipping Zones provide an operational view of maritime geography. They are designed to reflect important shipping regions and give users more relevant geographic context when exploring vessel activity.
Examples include regions such as the Baltic, Bay of Biscay, East Mediterranean, Middle East Gulf, US Gulf and West Mediterranean.
What is changing?
The existing Trade Areas layer is being replaced by Shipping Zones.
The new layer introduces:
Purpose-built shipping regions designed around shipping and chartering workflows
Updated geographic boundaries across key maritime markets
Clearer and more consistent naming of shipping regions
More relevant geographic context for understanding vessel positioning and regional activity
Greater consistency with MarineTraffic’s broader geographic data
Why are we making this change?
The way maritime professionals use geographic areas depends on the task at hand.
Legal maritime boundaries, commercial trading regions and operational shipping regions serve different purposes. Shipping Zones give shipping and chartering workflows their own dedicated geographic framework rather than relying on the legacy Trade Areas structure.
This enables MarineTraffic to provide geographic segmentation that better reflects how users assess vessel positioning and activity across the world’s major shipping regions.
Where can I find Shipping Zones?
Shipping Zones will be available directly from the MarineTraffic map.
Use the Shipping Zones layer to explore vessel activity across the new geographic regions.
What happens to Trade Areas?
Shipping Zones will replace the existing Trade Areas layer in MarineTraffic.
As a result, the legacy Trade Areas will no longer be the geographic layer used for this type of shipping-region analysis.
If you currently use Trade Areas as part of a saved alert or notification, you may receive separate information from us about any action required for your configuration.