Type 004 is the analysts' designation for China's fourth aircraft carrier, under construction at Dalian. Satellite imagery suggests a hull comparable in length to the US Ford class and possible nuclear propulsion.
The Queen Elizabeth class comprises the Royal Navy's two conventionally powered STOVL aircraft carriers, built around the F-35B Lightning and intended to sustain UK carrier strike through alternating ship availability.
Liaoning and Shandong are China's first two operational aircraft carriers: conventionally powered, ski-jump ships derived from the Soviet Kuznetsov design and used to build the PLA Navy's carrier-aviation capability.
China's first indigenously designed CATOBAR carrier, the Type 003 Fujian, is conventionally powered yet launches aircraft via electromagnetic catapults—a first for any non-US navy.
Russia's sole aircraft carrier — a heavy, conventionally powered STOBAR ship designed in the 1980s, now crippled by repeated accidents and likely headed for the scrapyard.
The world's largest warship — a nuclear-powered supercarrier with electromagnetic catapults, built to sustain a ~75-aircraft air wing and project power globally, and the centerpiece of the US Navy's 11-carrier fleet.