What does silk road mean?

Definitions for silk road
silk road

This dictionary definitions page includes all the possible meanings, example usage and translations of the word silk road.

Princeton's WordNet

  1. Silk Roadnoun

    an ancient trade route between China and the Mediterranean (4,000 miles); followed by Marco Polo in the 13th century to reach Cathay

Wiktionary

  1. Silk Roadnoun

    An extensive interconnected network of trade routes across Asia, North and Northeast Africa, and Europe, historically used by silk traders.

Wikipedia

  1. Silk Road

    The Silk Road (Chinese: 絲綢之路) was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles), it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and religious interactions between the East and West. The name "Silk Road", first coined in the late 19th century, has fallen into disuse among some modern historians in favor of Silk Routes, on the grounds that it more accurately describes the intricate web of land and sea routes connecting East and Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, Central Asia, the Middle East, East Africa and Europe.The Silk Road derives its name from the highly lucrative trade of silk textiles that were produced almost exclusively in China. The network began with the Han dynasty's expansion into Central Asia around 114 BCE, which largely pacified the once untamed region. Imperial envoy Zhang Qian was commissioned to explore the unknown lands beyond the region in search of potential trading partners and allies. The information and goods gathered by these expeditions piqued Chinese interest and prompted formal diplomatic and commercial dispatches, as well as efforts to protect the routes with soldiers and an extension of the Great Wall.The expansion of the Parthian Empire, which stretched from eastern Anatolia to Afghanistan, provided a bridge to East Africa and the Mediterranean, particularly the nascent Roman Empire. By the early first century CE, Chinese silk was widely sought-after in Rome, Egypt, and Greece. Other lucrative commodities from the East included tea, dyes, perfumes, and porcelain; among Western exports were horses, camels, honey, wine, and gold. Aside from generating substantial wealth for emerging mercantile classes, the proliferation of goods such as paper and gunpowder greatly altered the trajectory of various realms, if not world history. During its roughly 1,500 years of existence, the Silk Road endured the rise and fall of numerous empires and major events such as the Black Death and the Mongol conquests; after almost every disruption, the network reemerged stronger than before, most notably under the Mongol Empire and its offshoot the Yuan Dynasty. As a highly decentralized network, security was sparse. Travelers faced constant threats of banditry and nomadic raiders, and long expanses of inhospitable terrain. Few individuals crossed the entirety of the Silk Road, instead relying on a succession of middlemen based at various stopping points along the way. The Silk Road trade played a significant role in opening political and economic relations between China, Korea, Japan, India, Iran, Europe, the Horn of Africa and Arabia. In addition to goods, the network facilitated an unprecedented exchange of ideas, religions (especially Buddhism), philosophies, and scientific discoveries, many of which were syncretised or reshaped by the societies that encountered them. Likewise, a wide variety of people used the routes, including migrants, refugees, missionaries, artisans, diplomats, and soldiers. Diseases such as plague also spread along the Silk Road, possibly contributing to the Black Death.Despite repeatedly surviving many geopolitical changes and disruptions, the Silk Road abruptly lost its importance with the rise of the Ottoman Empire in 1453, which almost immediately severed trade between East and West. This prompted European efforts to seek alternative routes to Eastern riches, thereby ushering the Age of Discovery, European colonialism, and a more intensified process of globalization, which had arguably begun with the Silk Road. The network's influence survives into the 21st century. One of the world's best known historical figures, Marco Polo, was a Medieval Venetian merchant who was among the earliest Westerners to visit and describe the East. The name "New Silk Road" is used to describe several large infrastructure projects seeking to expand transportation along many of the historic trade routes; among the best known include the Eurasian Land Bridge and the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In June 2014, UNESCO designated the Chang'an-Tianshan corridor of the Silk Road as a World Heritage Site, while the Indian portion remains on the tentative site list.

ChatGPT

  1. silk road

    The Silk Road refers to an ancient network of trade routes that connected the East and West, spanning from the Eastern Mediterranean to North China. Established during the Han Dynasty of China in around 130 BCE, it was vital for the exchange of goods, cultural practices, knowledge, and ideas between civilizations such as Greece, China, India, Persia, and Arabia. The route is named after the lucrative silk trade which was a major reason for the connection of different regions via these routes. However, it also facilitated the spread of religions like Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity. Despite its name, it was not a single road but consisted of multiple routes by land and sea.

Wikidata

  1. Silk Road

    The Silk Road or Silk Route is a historical network of interlinking trade routes across the Afro-Eurasian landmass that connected East, South, and Western Asia with the Mediterranean and European world, as well as parts of North and East Africa. The Silk Road includes routes through Syria, Turkey, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan and China. Extending 4,000 miles, the Silk Road gets its name from the lucrative Chinese silk trade which was carried out along its length, and began during the Han Dynasty. The central Asian sections of the trade routes were expanded around 114 BC by the Han dynasty, largely through the missions and explorations of Zhang Qian, but earlier trade routes across the continents already existed. Trade on the Silk Road was a significant factor in the development of the civilizations of China, the Indian subcontinent, Persia, Europe and Arabia. Though silk was certainly the major trade item from China, many other goods were traded, and various technologies, religions and philosophies, as well as the bubonic plague, also traveled along the Silk Routes. The main traders during Antiquity were the Indian and Bactrian traders, then from the 5th to the 8th century the Sogdian traders, then afterward the Arab and Persian traders.

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Numerology

  1. Chaldean Numerology

    The numerical value of silk road in Chaldean Numerology is: 5

  2. Pythagorean Numerology

    The numerical value of silk road in Pythagorean Numerology is: 8

Examples of silk road in a Sentence

  1. Sergio Mattarella:

    The Silk Road must be a two-way street and not only trade must travel along it, but also talent, ideas and knowledge.

  2. Shervin Pishevar:

    Hyperloop can improve life dramatically for the 16 million people in the greater Moscow area, cutting their commute to a fraction of what it is today, our longer term vision is to work with Russia to implement a transformative new Silk Road: a cargo Hyperloop that whisks freight containers from China to Europe in a day.

  3. Patrick Guerra:

    Silk has been with us for a while since the days of the Silk Road, its not a new fabric, yet now were finding all these new uses for it.

  4. Zhou Xiaochuan:

    In its essence, the Silk Road fund is not similar to the Marshall Plan.

  5. Lisa Niziolek:

    This was a time when Chinese merchants became more active in maritime trade, more reliant upon oversea routes than on the overland Silk Road, the shipwreck occurred at a time of important transition.


Translations for silk road

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"silk road." Definitions.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 30 Apr. 2024. <https://www.definitions.net/definition/silk+road>.

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