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glossary

TEU

The abbreviation TEU stands for the English twenty-foot equivalent unit and means a 20-foot standard container. TEU is used internationally as the standardized unit for counting these standardized ISO containers. As a standardized unit, the TEU in sea freight traffic can be used to indicate the loading capacity of cargo ships. The capacities of handling terminals can also be quantified in this way.

Two 20-foot ISO containers in turn correspond to a 40-foot ISO container, which is also abbreviated to FEU for Fourty-Foot Equivalent Unit. A 40-foot ISO container therefore takes up the same loading capacity as two 20-foot ISO containers.