The geography of maritime ranges: interfacing global maritime shipping networks with Hinterlands

The paper looks at an intermediate scale of analysis for maritime transportation; the maritime range. Maritime ranges are bounded regions where a set of ports are either in competition, complementary, sharing a common regulatory regime, or having some fundamental geographical commonality. This scale is mostly missing from the research about the structure and organization of maritime transportation focusing on either the port or on the shipping network. The paper proposes a methodology defining maritime ranges bounded by maritime, inter-range, and hinterland boundaries. This methodology is applied to define 28 global maritime ranges representing functional commercial entities generating and attracting maritime traffic.