Use This API to Get a List of All Ship Types in a Port Right Now

When it comes to understanding maritime traffic in real time, one of the most common needs is to get a list of all ship types currently in a port. Whether you’re monitoring port congestion, tracking vessel types for logistics, or building maritime dashboards, having real-time access to structured data is key.

What Do We Mean by “List of All Ship Types”?

Before we jump into how to get this data, let’s clarify what we mean by “ship types.” In the maritime tracking industry, vessels are grouped by type, such as:

• Cargo ships

• Tankers

• Passenger vessels

• Tugboats

• Fishing boats

• Military/navy vessels

• High-speed craft

• Yachts and pleasure craft

The vessel API returns this information in a structured format, making it easy to filter, analyze, and visualize ship types at any given location.

How to Get a List of All Ship Types in a Port?

The Location Traffic Tracking Endpoint lets you search all ships within a specified radius around a port or geographic coordinate. The response includes key vessel details like ship name, coordinates, speed, destination, and most importantly, the ship type and subtype.

This is the best way to generate a live list of all ship types located in a port or sea area.

API Example: List All Ship Types in a Port:

You can run a basic API query using the port’s UN/LOCODE or latitude/longitude and set a radius to define your search area.

Example API request to get all ships around the Port of Barcelona (ESBCN):

API Response:

This API call returns all vessels within a 5 nautical mile radius of the port.

From this, you can see that the API returns different ships with different ship types, such as:

• Tanker

• Cargo

• Passenger

• Tug

• Fishing

• SAR (Search and Rescue)

• Military Ops

• Pleasure Craft

• Dredger

• HSC (High-Speed Craft)

• and over 300 other combinations available in Datalastic’s database

Filter By Ship Type:

If you want to retrieve only specific types of vessels (for example, only cargo ships), you can add the type or type_specific parameters OR to exclude types, you can also use the exclude parameter:

Complete List of Ship Types Available:

Datalastic supports over 300 vessel types and subtypes. Some examples include:

• Cargo – Hazard A (Major)

• Tanker – Hazard C (Minor)

• Passenger Ferry

• Container Ship

• Offshore Tug/Supply Ship

• LNG Tanker

• Asphalt or Bitumen Tanker

• High-Speed Craft

• Sailing Vessel

• Fishing Vessel

• Military or Law Enforcement

For the full list of values accepted by the API, refer to the ship types reference.

How to get access to the data that Location Traffic Location API provides?

This can be done easily in 3 steps and you can access the data immediately:

1. Obtain an API Key: To use the Datalastic API, you need to sign up for an account on Datalastic and obtain a unique API key.
2. Documentation: Familiarize yourself with the Datalastic API documentation. This will give you a clear understanding of the endpoints available, how to structure your requests, and what kind of data you can retrieve.
3. Use the location traffic tracking endpoint: Use the API to search for ships in the your desired port or sea area by specifying the geographic coordinates or the name of the port.

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