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History vocabulary · Economic History

Silk Road

Meaning in history, with examples

nounCore term

In history, Silk Road means: The network of overland and sea trade routes that linked China with Central Asia, the Middle East and the Mediterranean from ancient times to around the fifteenth century.

In Turkish: İpek Yolu

How it is used

The name was coined in the nineteenth century by the German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen. Historians stress that it was many routes, not one road, carrying silk, spices, paper, religions, technologies and diseases. Recent scholarship often says the Silk Roads.

Example sentences

  1. Samarkand grew rich as a trading city on the Silk Road.

  2. Paper-making spread west along the Silk Road.

Common collocations

  • along the Silk Road
  • Silk Road trade
  • Silk Road cities
  • the maritime Silk Road
  • trade routeA regular path by land, river or sea along which merchants carried goods between regions, such as the Silk Road or the spice routes of the Indian Ocean.
  • mercantilismAn economic policy common in Europe from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century that tried to increase a state's wealth and power by exporting more than it imported and building up gold and silver.
  • migrationThe movement of people from one place to another to live, either within a country or across borders, alone or in large groups.
  • guildAn association of craftsmen or merchants in the same trade that set standards, controlled training and prices, and protected its members, especially in medieval and early modern towns.

More terms: Economic History

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