Maritime and river traffic has long been a significant form of transport of people and goods. In today's modern era, marked by the development of new transportation technologies, the general burden of world ports is mainly industrial goods transported by the most containers. In addition to the above-mentioned industrial goods, seawater and river transport is the most transported liquid and bulk cargo. Containerisation brings great changes in maritime and river traffic, but also in global foreign trade. The mentioned container traffic recorded intense growth, reflecting the overall growth of the world's maritime and river traffic and changing the structure of the world's foreign trade. Among the world's leading ports, Central and Eastern European ports with the highest global traffic and most of the world's maritime and river traffic are particularly prominent. In the last 30 years, world traffic has doubled, which has imposed the need for international standardization and the construction of special ships and terminals that can meet the needs of modern maritime and river traffic around the world. Passenger water traffic is much less represented, peaked in the 30s of the last century, but since then there has been a decline in traffic. Many of the passenger ports are universal, not specialized or have been converted into freight ports because they are so more profitable. The world's leading travel port today is concentrated in the Bahamas and Mexico, and of the twenty largest and most busiest international passenger ports, half of them located in Europe. Further development of passenger traffic largely depends on technological progress and investment in passenger ships and ports in the future and better organization of passenger ports.