Shipping is a multi-faceted industry which is rather complex to define from an academic point of view. This book attempts to grasp these complexities and provide the reader with an overview of the main topics and terminology in shipping. The book is based on material from our courses in shipping at the universities in Delft and Bergen. As with our lectures, we draw upon quite a va ried material, from research studies at a high academic level to lower level student work and purely descriptive material from a multitude of sources. No particular attempts have been made to make all figures very updated. The reference years for descriptive data varies a lot, therefore . The book aims at being a useful textbook for students in engineering, economics and logistics and could be used both at an elementary introductory level as weil as on higher levels up to MBA. There are two distinct contributions in this book, which represent our respective backgrounds in engineering/operations and economics. We are of course indebted to many people, and many are particularly mentioned in the Chapter Notes. The book has been made with record speed, simply because we wanted it out to an audience which is invited to give us feedback. If this book fills a role in the teaching of shipping, we will certainly consider making a larger, more researched and more updated future vers ion, with fewer language errors and maybe even a keyword index.