From Wikipedia:
Applications implementing common services often use specifically reserved, well-known port numbers for receiving service requests from client hosts. This process is known as listening and involves the receipt of a request on the well-known port and reestablishing one-to-one server-client communications on another private port, so that other clients may also contact the well-known service port. The well-known ports are defined by convention overseen by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).
So as others mentioned, it's a convention.