Empirical analysis of the worldwide maritime transportation network

In this paper we present an empirical study of the worldwide maritime transportation network (WMN) in which the nodes are ports and links are container liners connecting the ports. Using the different representations of network topology - the spaces L and P, we study the statistical properties of WMN including degree distribution, degree correlations, weight distribution, strength distribution, average shortest path length, line length distribution and centrality measures. We find that WMN is a small-world network with power law behavior. Important nodes are identified based on different centrality measures. Through analyzing weighted clustering coefficient and weighted average nearest neighbors degree, we reveal the hierarchy structure and rich-club phenomenon in the network. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.