The Silk Road is the name commonly given to the ancient trade network linking China with the Mediterranean and named for the silk that moved along parts of it.
Rather than one single road, it was a changing collection of overland and maritime routes crossing Central Asia, the Iranian plateau, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean world. Chinese silk was a prestigious commodity, but merchants also exchanged horses, spices, metals, glass, textiles, paper, and other goods. Religions, artistic styles, technologies, and diseases traveled through the same connected networks.
The German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen popularized the term Seidenstraße, or Silk Road, in the 19th century. Some historians prefer the plural Silk Roads because the routes varied across centuries and included sea lanes. Trade expanded under several empires, including the Han and Tang dynasties and the Mongol Empire, but political instability, changing economies, and new maritime routes repeatedly altered its importance.