The large volume of port traffic and high urban population makes Tianjin a large-port megacity, the largest type of port-city in the world.

[15] The port is part of the Binhai New Area district of Tianjin Municipality, the main special economic zone of Northern China; it lies directly east of the TEDA.

These features make deep water navigation dependent on extensive dredging; it also means that land reclamation is a cost-effective option for construction.

[17] The lower course and estuary of the Haihe is the main stem of a large navigable basin, as well as the westernmost seashore of the North China Plain.

At the time, the main channel was dredged to 6 meter depth, could handle ships of up to 7,000 DWT, and had an annual throughput of only 800,000 tonnes—less than 1/500 of present capacity.

The export boom that followed the post-1979 Reform and Opening period put enormous pressure on the rickety port infrastructure of China.

The Tianjin Port did better than average due to its diversification: while container business plummeted, bulk trade (in particular iron ore) remained strong.

[24][25] The port is part of the Maritime Silk Road that runs from the Chinese coast to the south via the southern tip of India to Mombasa, from there through the Red Sea via the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean, from there to the Upper Adriatic region to the northern Italian hub of Trieste with its rail connections, and finally to Central Europe and the North Sea.

The barrier, opened in July 1984, closes ship traffic upriver into Tianjin city proper, and its erection resulted in the abandonment of 29.3 kilometers of navigable channel.

The VTS Center is located in an 88 meter tall control tower at the eastern end of the Dongtudi (East Pier) and has two subordinate monitoring stations at Dongjiang and Lingang.

[100] The State Oceanic Administration has overlapping authority regarding spills and pollution, usually concentrated on oil platform and pipeline incidents.

It is responsible for public order, law enforcement, criminal investigation, road traffic control, and fire safety and firefighting.

It is the main body engaged in control, prevention, and investigation of customs fraud, duty evasion, smuggling (including cultural goods, drugs, dangerous materials, etc.).

TPG has been injecting operational assets to TPC for several years and, since 2009, to TPD (most recently the Shihua Crude Oil Terminal).

The main organ of TPG's landlord function is the Tianjin Port Facilities Management Company (天津港设施管理服务公司), which manages and maintains all municipal services—including roads, railroads, bridges, water, and sewerage—installs and maintains wharf equipment and other production material, provides municipal administration, and provides engineering consultancy services.

Tianjin Port is the base of the Beihai Navigational Security Center's Tianjin Marine Survey and Charting Center (北海航海保障中心天津海事测绘中心)[126] with responsibility for the hydrographic surveying, monitoring, fairway sounding, and charting of all waters and shipping channels in the Beihai (Northern Seas) area, which includes the Bohai and Yellow seas.

[129] Dredging the Haihe Channel is the responsibility of the Tianjin Municipal Water Management Bureau (天津市水务局), which maintains both navigability and river flow capacity (set at 800 cubic meters).

Several dozen ship chandlers are capable of supplying all necessary deck, engine, cabin stores, and other provisions both at berth or at anchorage.

Bilge, slops and ballast water disposal is a major pollution hazard for the Bohai Bay, and it is tightly regulated by the MSA.

[156][157][158][159][160][161][162][163][164][165][166][167] One of the strategic goals of the port is to increase its high value-added services business, providing advance support for all forms of logistic activities.

The main deep-water route (6 nautical miles wide) goes from the Laotieshan Channel (38°36.1'N, 120°51.3'E) at a 276° bearing until reaching a Traffic Separation Scheme south of Caofeidian (38°48.0'N/118°45.2'E), and can be quite a crowded waterway.

A second main route (3 nautical miles wide westward, 3 nautical miles wide eastward) goes westward from Changshan channel (38°05.0'N/120°24.6'E) at a 293.5° bearing up to a point north of oil platform BZ28-1 (38°21.0'N/119°38.5'E), continuing at a 291° bearing up to the south of Caofedian Head (38°38.7'N/118°38.4'N) and then into the Xingang Main Channel.

[184][185] The three main port areas are fairly poorly connected by road, requiring rather long detours to transport any cargo or equipment between them.

While several bridges and tunnels directly linking Dongjiang with Beijiang and Nanjiang areas are projected for future development, these are still in early planning stages.

To help relieve this internal bottleneck, the Port introduced a lighter route in April 2010 connecting Nanjiang (N-10 berth) and Beijiang (Tianjin Container Terminal) using one heavy barge (7800 DWT, 200 TEU).

Additionally, a conveyor belt corridor runs parallel to the railway, carrying coal and ore to the Bulk Logistics Center.

The Tianjin Port Container Logistics Center (天津港集装箱物流中心) is located in the north part of the Beijiang area, in 7.03 square kilometers of reclaimed land.

[189] The Tianjin Port Bulk Logistics Center (天津港散货物流中心) opened in 2000, built on 26.8  square kilometers of former salt flats to the south of Donggu.

It includes the municipalities of Beijing and Tianjin, as well as the provinces of Hebei, Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Ningxia, Gansu, Qinghai, Tibet and Xinjiang, amounting to over 5 million square kilometers, or 52％ of China's area, and covering 17% of the country's population.

[note 3] TPL owns and operates 15 different scheduled railway routes, dispatching 50-car (100 TEU) trains to 15 different cities in China, including Xi'an, Chengdu, Taiyuan, Ürümqi, Baotou, Shizuishan, Erenhot, Alashankou, and Manzhouli, the last three being border crossings.