The Port of Ahus is the second biggest town in the Kristianstad Municipality in Skane County on the southwestern shores of Sweden off the Baltic Sea about 50 nautical miles west-southwest of the Port of Karlskrona. A small town with only nine thousand citizens, the local population explodes in the summer when German vacationers come to enjoy the beaches and natural scenery. The Port of Ahus is famous for Eel-parties called “alagille” where people gather in late summer and early fall to eat eel and drink the locally-made Absolut Vodka.

The Port of Ahus has been a commercial center and port since the 12th Century. It is marked on a 1330 nautical chart that Italian cartographer Angelino Dalorto drew.

In 1539, the Port of Ahus became a center of Baltic fisheries. When the city of Kristianstad was built, the Port of Ahus was blessed by increased shipping.

In the early 18th Century, shipping activities declined. Not one vessel called on the Port of Ahus from 1716 to 1718. Low traffic continued throughout the century.

Having declined, the harbor was modernized in the early 1840s, and it received a royal Harbour Charter in 1852. Improvements to the Port of Ahus continued through the remainder of the 1800s. In the late 1890s, the Port of Ahus went through a complete overhaul that included widening and straightening the approach channel.

In the latter half of the 19th Century, the Port of Ahus employed more workers to keep up with the steady growth in ocean-going traffic. In 1894, the workers formed the first trade union in the Port of Ahus. In 1898, the workers formed a cooperative that handled all loading and unloading work in the Port of Ahus. This stevedore union continued to operate until 1941.

World War II brought a stop to shipping and port improvements, but activities started again in the late 1940s. In 1955, the harbor was expanded and two new cranes were purchased. By the 1960s, the Port of Ahus was basically an import harbor, with four times the cargo unloaded that was loaded. With the growth in imports of heating oil to Sweden, the Port of Ahus completed a new oil depot in 1966. During the 1970s and 1980s, the Port of Ahus welcomed several new businesses.

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