Silk Road

From the Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can change

The Silk Road.

Silk Road was a trade route (a path that traders follow) that went across Asia to the Mediterranean Sea that let China trade with other places. It was named the silk road because there was a lot of silk traded along it. Because traders came from many places, different ideas were brought to China, and China's ideas were taken to other places. The Silk Road earned China a lot of money. Some of the things the Chinese traded were silk, porcelain, rice, and spices.

Trade on the Silk Road was a big part in the growth of the ancient cultures of China, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, India, and Rome, and helped to make the beginning of today's world. Silk road is English for the German word "Seidenstraße". The first person who call it that was a German geographer (a person who studies the earth's surface) in the year 1877.

[change] Path

The Silk Road first travels west from North China. The part of the Silk Road on land splits into north and south roads to move around the Tibetan Plateau.

After the two parts come back together, it goes in an almost straight line west through mountains in north Iran and the north tip of the Syrian Desert to the Levant. From there Mediterranean trading ships took routes to Italy, and land routes went north through Anatolia or south to North Africa.

Sea

The part of the Silk Road on water stretches from South China, to the Philippines, Brunei, Siam, Malacca, Ceylon, India, Pakistan, and Iran.

In Europe it stretches from Israel, Lebanon, Egypt and Italy. In the Mediterranean Sea, it goes to Portugal and Sweden.

The Silk Road in the 1st century.

[change] Asian trades

Standing Buddha, 1st century.

A Roman soldier on a glass pot.

The Buddhist religion and the Greco-Buddhist culture started to move east on the Silk Road, going to China from around the 100s BC.Trading also helped make many arts and crafts, brought different religions, and food to China. Chinese people helped build the Silk Road, They bought and sold with other people, and built up their culture. The Kushan empire, in the northwest part of India, was in the middle of these trades.

The Silk Road brought other cultures into Central Asia and China. It also helped the rise of the Mongol Empire, the biggest land empire ever.

The Roman Empire, which bought a lot of Chinese goods, began to fall from power in the West around the 5th century. In Central Asia, Islam expanded starting in the 7th century. This brought a stop to Chinese west growth at a battle in 751 AD. More growth of the Islamic Turks in Central Asia from the 10th century stopped trade in that part of the world.