The Silk Roads
The Silk Roads weren’t a single road—they were a vast network of exchange, developed over 1,500 years. Through trade, migration, and exchange, they linked distant societies and transformed cultures across Afro-Eurasia. Use these classroom-ready lessons and teaching materials to help students analyze how growing connections reshaped the medieval world and our world today.
How to Teach the Silk Roads: Tools for Teachers
Maps Index
Our maps will help students draw connections across borders. Check out the Medieval Trade Routes map as well as our maps on the Mongols, Black Death, and spread of religions to see the true impacts of the Silk Roads.
Blog: Who Really Built the Silk Roads?
The story of the Silk Roads is also the story of the diasporas that held the network together. Explore one of the most crucial and least known of these diasporas: the Sogdians.
Continuity and Change Over Time (CCOT)
A thinking skill to help students understand the evolution of historical processes, such as the evolution of the Silk Roads from a regional network to a global one.
Community Forum: Silk Roads Ideas
Check out teachers’ ideas for bringing the Silk Roads trade to life.
Teach Tomorrow: Lessons on The Silk Roads
Lesson 5.6
The Silk Roads
The Silk Roads carried a lot more than just silk—they also brought technologies, cultures, and religions to new places. Discover how trade routes like the Silk Roads expanded and contracted over time.
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Lesson 5.7
Expanding the Silk Routes
Explore the caravan routes and sea lanes called the Silk Roads to discover how merchants traveled from China to the Mediterranean Sea, moving goods, ideas, and cultures across continents.
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Silk Roads Activities and Resources for Deeper Learning
Silk Road: Merchants of Complexity
Article
Silk Road: Merchants of Complexity
For thousands of years, goods have traveled across thousands of miles by land and sea from China to the Mediterranean and back. But why were these routes called the Silk Road?
Silk Road Simulation
Activity
Silk Road Simulation
Where did your shoes come from? No, not the store. Where did they really come from? In this activity, it’s time to find out
Medieval Trade Routes Thematic Map
Map
Medieval Trade Routes Thematic Map
This world map shows the main routes of the Silk Roads, and the many smaller systems surrounding it, from China to the Mediterranean.
Guilds, Wool, and Trade: Medieval England in a Global Economy
Video
Guilds, Wool, and Trade: Medieval England in a Global Economy
The Silk Roads connected the British Isles to regions across Afro-Eurasia. Historians Nick Dennis and Trevor Getz explore the wool trade and its impact on England.
World Travelers
Opener
World Travelers
In this quick opener activity, students use their critical thinking skills to decipher what Marco Polo was describing in excerpts from his book.
Source Collection: Networks of Exchange
Article
Source Collection: Networks of Exchange
The primary source excerpts in this collection will help you assess the causes and consequences of the exchange of intellectual and cultural ideas and traditions from c. 1200 to 1450 CE.
Writing Assessments to Grade the Silk Roads
Pre-Writing: Trade Networks
Assessment
Pre-Writing: Trade Networks
Get ready for writing by crafting a claim and gathering supporting evidence to evaluate the pros and cons of Silk Road trade for Afro-Eurasia.
DBQ Sources: Trade Networks
Assessment
DBQ Sources: Trade Networks
Analyze these sources and gather evidence to support your argument about the impacts of long-distance trade.
Writing: Trade Networks
Assessment
Writing: Trade Networks
Time to write! Demonstrate your understanding of the impacts of trade along the Silk Roads by creating a written argument in response to the prompt.
Community: Ask, Connect, Share
Join our World History Community Forum to see how teachers are using and adapting OER Project lessons.