World history concepts · AP World History: Modern
Silk Roads
Silk Roads: Overland trade routes linking China, Central Asia, the Middle East and Europe, along which goods, ideas, technologies and diseases spread.
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What it means
The Silk Roads carried luxury goods such as silk, porcelain and spices, along with religions, technologies and diseases. Trade flourished in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries when the Mongol Empire provided relative security across much of Eurasia.
Innovations such as caravanserai, paper money and bills of exchange supported long-distance commerce.
Example
The bubonic plague likely spread westward along Eurasian trade routes in the fourteenth century, contributing to the Black Death in Europe and the Middle East.
On the exam
The Silk Roads are a Unit 2 topic and frequent evidence in comparisons of trade networks.
Lessons and practice questions
Related terms
- Indian Ocean tradeA maritime trade network linking East Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, South Asia, Southeast Asia and China, driven by monsoon winds.
- Mongol EmpireThe largest contiguous land empire in history, founded by Chinggis (Genghis) Khan in the early thirteenth century.
- Dar al-IslamArabic for 'house of Islam'; the regions where Muslim rulers governed or Islam was the dominant faith, connected by trade, law and scholarship.