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COSCO

Chinese shipping and logistics services supplier

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 15, 2026
Entity authorityQ117286 ↗
Source-derived summary

China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO) was a former shipping corporation from 1961 to 2016, owned by the State Council of China and supervised by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council. The company merged with China Shipping Group Company to form China COSCO Shipping Corporation in January 2016.

COSCO was founded in 1961 as a state-owned shipping and logistics services supplier company.

COSCO headquarters is in Ocean Plaza in the Xicheng District in Beijing. It owns 1114 ships, including 365 dry bulk vessels, a container fleet with a capacity of 1,580,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU), and a tanker fleet of 120 vessels. The fleet calls at over a thousand ports worldwide. It ranks among the largest in both number of container ships and aggregate container volume in the world. In 2012, it was among China's top 15 brands.

It was the largest dry bulk carrier in China and one of the largest dry bulk shipping operators worldwide. In addition, the Group is the largest liner carrier in China.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “COSCO” as chinese shipping and logistics services supplier. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around COSCO, Chinese and shipping.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1961, 2016, 1114, 2012—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1961-04-27. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with COSCO, Chinese and shipping providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “COSCO”, the useful work is to connect “chinese shipping and logistics services supplier” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q117286. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1961, 2016, 1114 and 2012.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “COSCO”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow COSCO primary sources, COSCO archive and COSCO research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “COSCO”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “COSCO” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.