History of the Silk Road

The Silk Road was a network of trade routes connecting China and the Far East with the Middle East and Europe. Established when the Han Dynasty in China officially opened trade with the West in 130 B.C., the Silk Road routes remained in use until 1453 A.D., when the Ottoman Empire boycotted trade with China and closed them. Although it’s been nearly 600 years since the Silk Road has been used for international trade, the routes had a lasting impact on commerce, culture and history that resonates even today.

The Silk Road may have formally opened up trade between the Far East and Europe during the Han Dynasty, which ruled China from 206 B.C. to 220 A.D. Han Emperor Wu sent imperial envoy Zhang Qian to make contact with cultures in Central Asia in 138 B.C., and his reports from his journeys conveyed valuable information about the people and lands that lay to the West. But the transport of goods and services along these routes dates back even further.

The Royal Road, which connected Susa (in present-day Iran) more than 1,600 miles west to Sardis (near the Mediterranean Sea in modern Turkey), was established by the Persian ruler Darius I during the Achaemenid Empire—some 300 years before the opening of the Silk Road.

The Persians also expanded the Royal Road to include smaller routes that connected Mesopotamia to the Indian subcontinent as well as northern Africa via Egypt.

Alexander the Great, ruler of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia, expanded his dominion into Persia via the Royal Road. Parts of the thoroughfare were ultimately incorporated into the Silk Road.

The east-west trade routes between Greece and China began to open during the first and second centuries B.C. The Roman Empire and the Kushan Empire (which ruled territory in what is now northern India) also benefitted from the commerce created by the route along the Silk Road. Interestingly, the ancient Greek word for China is “Seres,” which literally means “the land of silk.”

However, despite this obvious link to the name, the term “Silk Road” wasn’t coined until 1877, when German geographer and historian Ferdinand von Richthofen first used it to describe the trade routes.

Historians now prefer the term “Silk Routes,” which more accurately reflects the fact that there was more than one thoroughfare.

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