trade network
Interconnected merchant routes
A trade network is a system of interconnected routes and relationships through which goods, services, and commerce flow between regions or peoples.
The term often appears in historical contexts—the Silk Road was a famous trade network linking East and West.
Modern usage extends to any web of commercial exchange: The company built a trade network spanning three continents.
- supply chainProduct delivery infrastructure
- commerceExchange of goods, services
- barterDirect goods-for-goods exchange
- tariffTax on traded goods
- import-exportInternational goods commerce
market · black market · entrepôt · caravansary · caravan route · port · port of call · guilds · cultural exchange · merchant class · routes · economic integration · Silk Road · ancient routes · shipping lane · bazaar · spices · smuggling
- tradecustoms, commerce, export, exports, quotas
- trade routesspice route, silk road, Silk Road, cargo routes, merchant routes
- Trading & Marketsflea market, bazaar, souk, stall, booth
- informal economiesbarter, bartering, swap, barter systems, skill sharing
- trade blocsNAFTA, EU, ASEAN, USMCA, EEC
trade networkeconomic isolation
Severing external trade ties
autarky · self-sufficiency · trade embargo · economic blockade · isolationism
trade networksubsistence economy
System without market surplus
subsistence farming · barter economy · gift economy · self-sufficiency · autarky