Story · Transport map · about 5 min
How Britain's trade has changed since 1997
The trade flows layer holds a real 1997-2025 series, country by country. Slide from one end to the other and the shape of Britain's trading relationships changes as well as the totals. Later steps follow the goods themselves: by plane or ship, through the tunnel, and through which ports.
1997: £348bn with the top 90
In 1997, the UK's combined trade (exports plus imports) with its 90 biggest partners totalled about £348 billion. China barely registered: just £3.6 billion of trade that year, a small fraction of the total. Goods only: services, a large part of UK trade, are published separately and not mapped here.
2025: £1,003bn, and China transformed
By 2025 the same 90 partners' combined trade had grown to about £1,003 billion, 2.9 times the 1997 figure in cash terms (not adjusted for inflation). China's trade alone grew to £88.3 billion, 24 times its 1997 level.
Britain's biggest deficit: China
This is the Balance view of the trade map: each circle is what Britain sold to a country minus what it bought from it. Orange circles are deficits (Britain buys more than it sells) and teal ones are surpluses. China’s is the biggest orange circle: the UK buys about £51.0 billion more from China each year than it sells there. Only 34 of the top 90 partners run a UK surplus at all, and the largest teal circle is Ireland, at £6.5 billion.
Value or weight? Planes and ships
In 2025, 33% of the value of Britain’s imports from its top 90 partners came through an airport, yet only 1% of the weight. Ships and ferries carried 92% of the weight and 53% of the value. Planes carry what is worth a lot for its weight; ships carry the heavy stuff. Each badge on a route shows the main way its trade travels, by value. Switzerland is the extreme: 88% of what Britain sells there, by value, goes through an airport, and 85% of what it buys.
Three weeks at sea to China
Click China and press "Watch it sail". A container ship leaves Southampton, crosses the Bay of Biscay, the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal, the Indian Ocean and the Strait of Malacca, and reaches Shanghai after about 20,600 km: around 21 days at a container ship's typical 40 km/h. A plane covers 9,200 km to Shanghai in about 11 hours.
When there is no coast
Switzerland, Austria, Czechia, Hungary, Slovakia and Luxembourg have no coast, so the ship route on the map ends at the nearest big port and the goods go on by lorry, train or river barge. For Switzerland the sea leg ends at Rotterdam, only about 180 km from Felixstowe, a journey of about 4 hours. The last few hundred kilometres are overland and do not show as a ship. Czechia shows the other half: its badge is a train, because 64% of what Britain sold there in 2025 went through the tunnel or by rail.
France: through the tunnel
Britain’s trade with its nearest neighbours looks different again. 54% of exports to France, by value, went by rail or through the Channel Tunnel, 16% through ferry ports such as Dover, where lorries drive on and off, and 9% through other seaports. Customs only note which port a load used, so a lorry icon means a ferry port, and a lorry on the Eurotunnel shuttle is counted as tunnel traffic. The dots mark the French ports, the Eurotunnel terminals and the Eurostar stops. Before 2021 for exports and 2022 for imports, trade with EU countries has no port on record, so older years have no icons.
What was in the boxes
Click Germany and read "What was in the boxes": 32% of what Britain bought from Germany in 2025, by value, was cars and other vehicles. From Norway, 85% was fuels and oils. Click China and the biggest thing Britain sold is gold, silver, gems and jewellery, 55% of the value. That is not shopping: gold and silver bullion moves between banks and vaults, so it can top a country's list. The lists are HMRC's commodity chapters, five per way.
If the Suez Canal closed
28 of the 90 ship routes on this map go through the Suez Canal, and 14 through the Strait of Malacca. Click China and tick "What if the Suez Canal were closed?": the ship must go round Africa, 8,000 km and about 8 days further (28,600 km in all). The Gulf states lose about 11 days, Saudi Arabia 18, because its port is in the Red Sea behind the canal. Australia barely notices, about 2 days, because round the Cape is nearly as short for it. Then press "Watch all the routes at once".
Where the goods come in
Every circle is a port, and the bigger the circle, the more freight it handled. 53 major ports moved 420 million tonnes in 2025, down from 556 million in 2000. The three biggest are London (56.6 million tonnes), Grimsby & Immingham (44.9, twin ports on the Humber estuary) and Milford Haven (38.3). The colour says what mostly comes through each one: oil and gas at Milford Haven (98%), containers at Felixstowe (85%), lorries and cars on ferries at Dover (98%). Note the unit: this counts tonnes, so a tonne of coal counts the same as a tonne of medicines. That is why the busiest ports are not always the ones handling the most valuable trade.
For classrooms and curious minds
Questions to talk about, alone or in a group.
- What is the difference between a trade surplus and a deficit, and is a deficit always bad?
- Why would goods that are worth a lot for their weight travel by air, and heavy goods by sea?
Try it on the map: Use the year slider to compare 1997 with 2025. Which partner has moved up the list most?
The figures above are calculated from the datasets listed on Data & sources and are approximate: many map layers are modelled or interpolated. Read each layer’s caveats on the map.