Map of Silk Road

Map of Silk Road
Originally uploaded by lirena

The Silk Road (or Silk Routes) is an extensive interconnected network of trade routes across the Asian continent connecting East, South, and Western Asia with the Mediterranean world, as well as North and Northeast Africa and Europe.

The Silk Road gets its name from the lucrative Chinese silk trade which begun during the Han Dynasty, the major reason for the connection of trade routes into an extensive trans-continental network.[1][2][3]