The Silk Road

The Silk Road was an interconnected series of routes through Southern Asia traversed by caravan and ocean vessels, and connecting Chang'an (today's Xi'an), China, with Antioch, Syria, as well as other points. Its influence carried over into Korea and Japan.

These exchanges were critical not only for the development and flowering of the great civilizations of Ancient Egypt, China, India and Rome but also laid the foundations of our modern world. Silk road is a translation from the German "Seidenstraße", a term firstly used by the German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen in the 19th century.

The continental Silk Road diverges into northern and southern routes as it extends from the commercial centers of North China. The northern route passes through the Turkish zone of Kypchak to Eastern Europe and the Crimean peninsula, and from there across the Black Sea, Marmara Sea and the Balkans to Venice.

The southern route passes through Turkestan-Khorasan into Mesopotamia and Anatolia, and then through Antioch in Southern Anatolia into the Mediterranean Sea or through the Levant into Egypt and North Africa.

The last missing railroad link of the Silk Road was completed in 1992, when the international railway communication Almaty - Urumqi was opened.

The Silk Road on the sea extends from South China, to todays Philippines, Brunei, Siam, Malacca, Ceylon, India, Persia, Egypt, Italy, Portugal and Sweden. On August 7, 2005 the Antiquity and Monument Office of Hong Kong was proposing the Silk Road as an UNESCO World Heritage.