Trade route
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A trade route is the sequence of pathways and stopping places used for the commercial transport of cargo.
Which route is considered preferable (or not) for use by groups of merchants and their armed and logistical escort, depends on a number of background factors, including an overall political and economic situation in areas to be crossed, travellers' mode of transport, their navigation skills and knowledge of geography (and weather patterns), as well as on the actual ease, speed, safety and profitability of such journeys.
The first documented long-distance networks of caravan routes and shipping routes have been established approximately 4,000 BCE between the early-urban settlements in lowland Mesopotamia (southern Iraq).
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Important trade routes
- The Persian Royal Road was established or improved upon by Persian kings, and became the foundation for the Silk Road.
- Silk and Spice Routes connected various empires across Europe and Asia, including the Roman Empire and the Han Dynasty, around the 1st century. These routes connected a number of trading posts and spanned a large part of the known world. See Silk Road.
- Incense Routes connected the Arabian Peninsula to North Africa, Levant and Europe and were largely run by Arabian traders who supplied those regions with frankincense and myrrh.
- The Amber Road connected the North Sea and Baltic Sea coasts by way of the Vistula and Dnieper rivers to Italy, Greece, Black Sea and Egypt. The Silk Road could then be reached from the Black Sea for further transporting Baltic amber.
- Trans-Saharan trade routes connected West Africa and Mediterranean countries.
See also
References
- Pelham, Reginald A. "Trade Route." Chambers's Encyclopaedia (New Revised Edition), vol 13: 735-739, Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1966.
- Stone, Norman. ed. 'The Times' Atlas of World History. Third edition. London: Times Books Ltd., 1989.
External links
- Ciolek, T. Matthew. Old World Traditional Trade Routes (OWTRAD) Project (http://www.ciolek.com/owtrad.html). Canberra: www.ciolek.com - Asia Pacific Research Online, 1999-present.
- Sherratt, Andrew. Trade Routes: The Growth of Global Trade (http://www.arch.ox.ac.uk/ArchAtlas/Trade/Trade.htm). ArchAtlas, Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford, 2003.