Excellent China Travel Forum

The Silk Road (or Silk Routes) is an extensive interconnected network of trade routes across the Asian continent connecting East, South, and Western Asia with the Mediterranean world, as well as North and Northeast Africa and Europe. In recent years, the Silk Road is again being used for the maritime and overland routes.

Overview
Woven silk textile from Tomb No. 1 at Mawangdui, Changsha, Hunan province, China, 2nd century BCE, Han DynastyThe Silk Routes (collectively known as the 'Silk Road') were important paths for cultural, commercial and technological exchange between traders, merchants, pilgrims, missionaries, soldiers, nomads and urban dwellers from China, India, Persia and Mediterranean countries for almost 3,000 years.

Extending over 5,000 miles, the routes enabled people to transport goods, especially luxuries such as slaves, silk, satin and other fine fabrics, musk, other perfumes, spices and medicines, jewels, glassware and even rhubarb, as well as serving as a conduit for the spread of knowledge, ideas, cultures and diseases between different parts of the world (China, India, Asia Minor and the Mediterranean). Trade on the Silk Road was a significant factor in the development of the great civilizations of China, India, Egypt, Persia, Arabia, and Rome, and in several respects helped lay the foundations for the modern world. Although the term the Silk Road implies a continuous journey, very few who traveled the route traversed it from end to end. For the most part, goods were transported by a series of agents on varying routes and were traded in the bustling mercantile markets of the oasis towns.


The ruins of a Han Dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD) Chinese watchtower made of rammed earth at Dunhuang, Gansu provinceThe central Asian sections of the trade routes were expanded around 114 BCE by the Han Dynasty,largely through the missions and explorations of Zhang Qian,but earlier trade routes across the continents already existed. In the late Middle Ages, transcontinental trade over the land routes of the Silk Road declined as sea trade increased.

Though silk was certainly the major trade item from China, many other products were traded, and various technologies, religions and philosophies as well as the bubonic plague (the so-called 'Black Death') also traveled along the Silk Routes.