Academic tool

US Place Atlas

Trace US ocean imports by port of entry, by consignee city and state (the importer address on the bill), or by shipper city (the foreign factory address). Cluster maps sit on every slice. Click a row to go one step deeper. The URL is the citation.

All research tools · Research Desk · Universe: kirchner.bols

Port of entry · Where the vessel cleared Consignee city · US importer address Shipper city · Foreign production address

Methods (read before you cite)

  • US Customs ocean Bills of Lading only. Air, truck, rail, and informal entries are out of sample.
  • Port of entry is unloading_port (code, city, ST). That is where the vessel cleared, not the consignee headquarters.
  • Consignee and shipper city/state/zip/country are parsed from consignee_address and shipper_address and stored on kirchner.bols. Bills without a parseable US state+ZIP drop out of consignee-place slices. Shipper country falls back to the filed origin country when the address has no country token.
  • Coordinates prefer a Census street geocode of the full address when it exists; otherwise a US ZIP centroid or a GeoNames city centroid. consignee_geo_precision / shipper_geo_precision is street, zip, or city. Maps cluster those points.
  • Production partners are distinct shipper_name strings. Parties are filing names, not resolved legal entities.
  • Every number below is from the SQL printed under it. Nothing is imputed.

Start from a worked example

Consignee

California importers

Drill by the address on the bill — LA, City of Industry, Ontario — not the port the box cleared.

Shipper

Vietnam factories

Production cities parsed from shipper_address, then the US importers they ship to.

Port of entry

Savannah, Georgia

The gateway itself: who receives through it, and where those consignees actually sit.
Reset place

United States

Retrieved 2026-08-23 UTC from kirchner.bols.

Unique BOLs

3,099,111

US importers

433,114

Production partners

287,023

Origin countries

219

US consignees

Clustered by parsed consignee city / ZIP. Circle size is unique bills.

Foreign production

Clustered by parsed shipper city. Circle size is unique bills.

Census regions

Click a row to drill down. Bars are unique bills in this slice.

Place BOLs Share
South 1,026,445
West 1,023,338
Northeast 587,814
Midwest 461,735

Products in this place

HS-4 as filed. Click to keep this geography and filter the product.

  1. 1. 9401 SEAT CUSHION POLYESTER FIBER 92,661
  2. 2. 9403 METAL FURNITURE 77,477
  3. 3. 3922 PLASTIC COVER;BLACK CYLINDER SLIDE-ADVANTA 49,426
  4. 4. 4819 STORAGE BOX 39,975
  5. 5. 8516 DELUXE TRAVEL KIT BOOSTER CABLE . . 36,733
  6. 6. 2620 CASES FRESH KIWIS ON PALLETS REF. ALSO CON 36,175
  7. 7. 8428 ACCENT CHAIR 35,440
  8. 8. 8474 TEREPHTHALOYL CHLORIDE PACKING BULK IN ONE 34,741
  9. 9. 8708 EXHAUST PIPE HTS: 31,413
  10. 10. 5513 VEGETABLES IN VINEGAR PLASTIC BAG M L (OZ) 26,786
  11. 11. 4011 NEW YOKOHAMA TIRES AND/OR TUBES ( PIECES) 26,271
  12. 12. 8415 NEW AUTOMOTIVE PARTS INV# 22,556

Origin countries

Where the cargo is filed as coming from. Click to keep this geography and filter origin.

  1. 1. CN, CHINA 1,601,976
  2. 2. VN, VIET NAM 226,589
  3. 3. KR, REPUBLIC OF KOREA 117,448
  4. 4. IN, INDIA 109,087
  5. 5. TH, THAILAND 93,516
  6. 6. DE, GERMANY 74,047
  7. 7. TW, TAIWAN 73,318
  8. 8. JP, JAPAN 50,600
  9. 9. ID, INDONESIA 49,751
  10. 10. MY, MALAYSIA 35,089
  11. 11. BE, BELGIUM 34,844
  12. 12. BR, BRAZIL 31,124

Cite this query

Kirchner Data. Place Atlas: United States, 2026–2026. Retrieved 2026-08-23 from https://kirchnerdata.com/research-atlas?from=2026&place=consignee&to=2026. Universe: US ocean Bills of Lading (CBP), table kirchner.bols. Place mode: consignee. Consignee/shipper city, state, zip, country, and coordinates are stored columns parsed from the filing address.

SQL that produced these numbers

totals · 1 row 
SELECT uniqExact(bill_of_lading) AS bols, uniqExact(consignee_name) AS firms, uniqExact(shipper_name) AS partners, uniqExact(country) AS origins, uniqExact(unloading_port) AS ports, round(sum(weight_in_kg)) AS kg FROM bols WHERE (actual_arrival_date >= toDate('2026-01-01') AND actual_arrival_date <= toDate('2026-12-31')) AND trimBoth(unloading_port) != '' AND consignee_state != ''
products · 12 rows 
SELECT substring(replaceAll(hs_code, '.', ''), 1, 4) AS hs4, anyHeavy(product_desc) AS sample, uniqExact(bill_of_lading) AS bols FROM bols WHERE (actual_arrival_date >= toDate('2026-01-01') AND actual_arrival_date <= toDate('2026-12-31')) AND trimBoth(unloading_port) != '' AND consignee_state != '' AND length(replaceAll(hs_code, '.', '')) >= 4 GROUP BY hs4 ORDER BY bols DESC LIMIT 12
origins · 12 rows 
SELECT country AS name, uniqExact(bill_of_lading) AS bols, uniqExact(shipper_name) AS partners FROM bols WHERE (actual_arrival_date >= toDate('2026-01-01') AND actual_arrival_date <= toDate('2026-12-31')) AND trimBoth(unloading_port) != '' AND consignee_state != '' AND trimBoth(country) != '' AND lengthUTF8(trimBoth(country)) >= 3 AND upperUTF8(trimBoth(country)) NOT IN ('N/A','NA','NONE','NULL','UNKNOWN','-','--','N.A.') GROUP BY name ORDER BY bols DESC LIMIT 12
map_consignees · 400 rows 
SELECT consignee_city AS city, consignee_state AS state, consignee_zip AS zip, any(consignee_lat) AS lat, any(consignee_lon) AS lon, any(consignee_geo_precision) AS precision, uniqExact(bill_of_lading) AS bols FROM bols WHERE (actual_arrival_date >= toDate('2026-01-01') AND actual_arrival_date <= toDate('2026-12-31')) AND trimBoth(unloading_port) != '' AND consignee_state != '' AND consignee_lat != 0 AND consignee_lon != 0 GROUP BY city, state, zip ORDER BY bols DESC LIMIT 400
map_shippers · 400 rows 
SELECT shipper_city AS city, shipper_country AS country, any(shipper_lat) AS lat, any(shipper_lon) AS lon, any(shipper_geo_precision) AS precision, uniqExact(bill_of_lading) AS bols FROM bols WHERE (actual_arrival_date >= toDate('2026-01-01') AND actual_arrival_date <= toDate('2026-12-31')) AND trimBoth(unloading_port) != '' AND consignee_state != '' AND shipper_lat != 0 AND shipper_lon != 0 AND shipper_city != '' GROUP BY city, country ORDER BY bols DESC LIMIT 400
places · 4 rows 
SELECT (CASE WHEN consignee_state IN ('CT','ME','MA','NH','RI','VT','NJ','NY','PA') THEN 'northeast' WHEN consignee_state IN ('IL','IN','MI','OH','WI','IA','KS','MN','MO','NE','ND','SD') THEN 'midwest' WHEN consignee_state IN ('DE','FL','GA','MD','NC','SC','VA','DC','WV','AL','KY','MS','TN','AR','LA','OK','TX') THEN 'south' WHEN consignee_state IN ('AZ','CO','ID','MT','NV','NM','UT','WY','AK','CA','HI','OR','WA') THEN 'west' ELSE 'other' END) AS name, uniqExact(bill_of_lading) AS bols, uniqExact(consignee_state) AS states, uniqExact(unloading_port) AS ports, uniqExact(consignee_name) AS firms, uniqExact(shipper_name) AS partners FROM bols WHERE (actual_arrival_date >= toDate('2026-01-01') AND actual_arrival_date <= toDate('2026-12-31')) AND trimBoth(unloading_port) != '' AND consignee_state != '' GROUP BY name ORDER BY bols DESC