The visualization of direct inter-port connections (Figure 2) highlights the very strong position of three main ports, namely Busan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. This confirms the usual rank of these ports based on official statistics of container traffic volume. In 1996, the corridor is heavily concentrated between Singapore and Hong Kong, while Busan’s function is more dedicated to trans ship smaller traffic volumes within Northeast Asia. The highest centrality at Busan is thus explained by the spatial scattering of nearby Japanese, Chinese, and Russian ports that are less equipped with modern handling technologies. In addition to this intermediacy, Busan also exploits its centrality that is its national gateway function handling about 90 % of South Korea’s international trade. The network is highly polarized as all other ports have a moderate centrality, except for some large gateway cities (e.g. Jakarta, Manila) and the special case of Kaohsiung (Taiwan) ensuring the China link through Hong Kong. In 2006, the overall network structure is similar ; Busan continues dominating the hierarchy of centrality. Other important hub ports have lost ground compared with 1996. Yet, the pursued development of the Chinese market (and of Chinese ports) is directly visible through the emergence of dense traffic links North of Hong Kong, notably with Shanghai and Qingdao. Such phenomenon does not contradict the permanency of Busan’s predominance since one can observe similar links connecting the latter with the aforementioned Chinese ports. However, Shanghai seems to position as a very central port in the new pattern where all main flows converge, as opposed to the previous pattern where it was nothing but a satellite of Hong Kong.