As the world’s largest container producing and transportation country, there hasn’t been one automated container terminal put into production and operation in China. The research on the general layout of automated container terminals is crucial for the container terminal construction. Based on the application and development status of automated container terminals both in China and abroad, several common layout types and characteristics of automated container terminals were summarized, aiming at the construction idea of some project, the technical solution for general layout of automated terminals are developed, and related comments and suggestions are proposed, which can be used for the reference of similar projects.