Pointe-Noire grew because of its port. The deepwater harbour was built in the 1930s by the French to serve as the Atlantic terminus of the Congo-Ocean Railway, and it has been the country's only ocean port ever since. Today it is one of the busiest container ports on the Atlantic coast of central Africa, handling cargo for landlocked Chad and the Central African Republic as well as for Congo itself.
The port itself is not visitable, but the waterfront around it has a working roughness that gives the city its character — bunker boats, container yards, fishing canoes pulled up between the warehouses. The best view is from the higher ground at the edge of the Centre-ville quarter.