Maritime Silk Road
maritime trade network · 100 BC–1499 AD
The sea routes from southern China through the Strait of Malacca to India, the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, sailed with the monsoon winds. Merchants of many peoples worked stretches of it, and the cloves and nutmeg of the Moluccas reached Rome and China along it.
View Maritime Silk Road on the map →
At a glance
- Goods
- spices, silk, porcelain, pepper, incense, cotton textiles, gems
- Carried by
- land, sea, river
- Hubs
- Guangzhou → Malacca → Calicut → Hormuz → Basra → Aden → Alexandria → Ternate
Recorded boundaries
| Period | Control | Confidence | Evidence | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100 BC–1 BC | — | low confidence | no observation date recorded | Trading through Guangzhou, Aden and Alexandria. |
| 1 AD–635 AD | — | low confidence | no observation date recorded | Trading through Guangzhou, Aden and Alexandria. |
| 636 AD–999 AD | — | low confidence | no observation date recorded | Trading through Guangzhou, Basra, Aden and Alexandria. |
| 1000 AD–1199 AD | — | low confidence | no observation date recorded | Trading through Guangzhou, Hormuz, Basra, Aden and Alexandria. |
| 1200 AD–1399 AD | — | low confidence | no observation date recorded | Trading through Guangzhou, Calicut, Hormuz, Basra, Aden, Alexandria and Ternate. |
| 1400 AD–1499 AD | — | low confidence | no observation date recorded | Trading through Guangzhou, Malacca, Calicut, Hormuz, Basra, Aden, Alexandria and Ternate. |
Each row is a snapshot the source recorded, not a continuous history. The period between two observations is an inference this atlas shows rather than hides.
Sources
- Lincoln Paine, The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World, (2013)