What was the Silk Road?
The Silk Road was a network of trade routes linking China with Central Asia, the Middle East and Europe for more than 1,500 years. Goods, ideas, religions and diseases traveled along it.
The routes became important around the second century BC, during China's Han dynasty, and remained in use until about the 1400s. They crossed deserts, mountains and steppes, passing through cities like Samarkand, Bukhara and Kashgar. Few traders traveled the whole way. Instead, goods passed from merchant to merchant along the route.
Chinese silk was highly prized in Rome, giving the routes their name, which was coined by German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen in 1877. Other goods included spices, tea, porcelain, glass, horses, gold and paper. Caravans of camels carried goods across the dry lands, resting at roadside inns called caravanserais.
Ideas on the move
The Silk Road spread more than goods. Buddhism traveled from India to China, and later Islam spread east. Inventions like paper-making and gunpowder moved west. Sadly, diseases also traveled, and the Black Death in the 1300s may have spread along these routes.
Did You Know?
Parts of the Silk Road network in China and Central Asia were added to UNESCO's World Heritage list in 2014.