The Silk Road (or Silk roads) was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. It spanned over 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles) and played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and religious interactions between the East and West. This map shows the Silk Road as well as other routes in the 1st century A.D.
The Silk Road and other caravan routes of Eurasia in the 1st century A.D., 2018, author: Kaidor; source: Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Silk_Road_in_the_I_century_AD_-_en.svg, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en.