An airport is an

aerodrome An aerodrome (Commonwealth English) or airdrome (American English) is a location from which aircraft flight operations take place, regardless of whether they involve air cargo, passengers, or neither, and regardless of whether it is for publ ...

with facilities for flights to take off and land. Airports often have facilities to store and maintain aircraft, and a

control tower Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled airsp ...

. An airport consists of a

landing area Landing area is an official designation of specialized Earth surface region by the international standard publication describing airfields and airports to aviators, the Aeronautical Information Publication. As such, it is directly translated into d ...

, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surface such as a

runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt concrete, as ...

for a plane to take off or a

helipad A helipad is a landing area or platform for helicopters and powered lift aircraft. While helicopters and powered lift aircraft are able to operate on a variety of relatively flat surfaces, a fabricated helipad provides a clearly marked hard s ...

, and often includes adjacent utility buildings such as control towers,

hangar A hangar is a building or structure designed to hold aircraft or spacecraft. Hangars are built of metal, wood, or concrete. The word ''hangar'' comes from Middle French ''hanghart'' ("enclosure near a house"), of Germanic origin, from Frankish ...

s and terminals. An airport with a helipad for rotorcraft but no runway is called a heliport. An airport for use by

seaplane A seaplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of takeoff, taking off and water landing, landing (alighting) on water.Gunston, "The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary", 2009. Seaplanes are usually divided into two categories based on their tec ...

s and

amphibious aircraft An amphibious aircraft or amphibian is an aircraft (typically fixed-wing) that can take off and land on both solid ground and water, though amphibious helicopters do exist as well. Fixed-wing amphibious aircraft are seaplanes ( flying boats ...

is called a

seaplane base A seaplane base is a type of airport that is located in a body of water, usually a river, bay, harbor, or lake, where seaplanes and amphibious aircraft take-off and land. History Initially following the invention of the seaplane, traditional boat ...

. Such a base typically includes a stretch of open water for

takeoff Takeoff is the phase of flight in which an aerospace vehicle leaves the ground and becomes airborne. For aircraft traveling vertically, this is known as liftoff. For aircraft that take off horizontally, this usually involves starting with a t ...

s and landings, and

docks for tying-up. An

international airport An international airport is an airport with customs and border control facilities enabling passengers to travel between countries around the world. International airports are usually larger than domestic airports and they must feature longer ...

has additional facilities for

customs Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting tariffs and for controlling the flow of goods, including animals, transports, personal effects, and hazardous items, into and out of a country. Traditionally, customs ...

and

immigration Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...

. * By country: see :Lists of airports by country * By metropolitan area: see :Airports by city *

List of eponyms of airports This is a list of eponymously named airports. It includes the name of the airport, the facility's location, and the person after whom the airport is named. Current airports Former names and names of closed airports ; Astor Piazzolla Internatio ...

(airports named after people) * Lists of military installations * Lists of the World's busiest airports: ** by aircraft movements ** by cargo traffic ** by passenger traffic ** by international passenger traffic * Lists by

elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Vert ...

: ** List of highest airports **

List of lowest airports This is a list of the world's lowest civilian airports, situated less than above mean sea level. The facility must be public, include at least one hard paved runway, and support general or commercial aviation . See also * List of highest airp ...

* With triple takeoff/landing capability * Worldwide list of airports with scheduled commercial service, see: Airline destinations

External links

KML (Google Earth geolocations) file of Airports
{{DEFAULTSORT:Airports

See also

Airports by continent

External links