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Container ports located in a delta of navigable waterways generally strive to develop the inland river services as a competitive transport mode, with a view to serving local and distant hinterland regions. The spatial and functional development of river-based container networks is location-specific and time-specific. While each barging network and associated seaport system has its own dynamics, similarities in development patterns cannot be excluded. This paper discusses similarities and dissimilarities between the spatial and the functional development of the container river service networks of the Yangtze River and the Rhine River. It is shown that the Yangtze service network has the tendency to converge, in more than one aspect, with the (historical) development pattern of inland container services in the Rhine basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]