trade routes
Merchant travel networks
Trade routes are established paths for commerce between distant places.
They can be land routes, sea lanes, or rivers—anywhere goods regularly flow between regions.
The Silk Road connected China to the Mediterranean; spice routes linked Asia to Europe.
Ancient trade routes shaped the rise and fall of civilizations.
The term often evokes historical commerce, but modern equivalents exist in shipping lanes and air freight corridors.
- merchantsThose who conduct commerce
- caravanTraveling group with goods
- camel trainsLinked dromedary cargo convoys
- commerceExchange of goods, services
- shipping lanesDesignated ocean travel paths
sea routes · entrepôt · navigation · cargo · goods · port · dhow · conduit · exchange · merchant ships · port cities · seaway · frankincense · channel · overland · passage · sea lane · voyage
- comparative historycolonialism, imperialism, revolutions, modernization, industrialization
- ancient economybarter, coinage, currency, taxes, tribute
- ancient history textbooksancient Rome, ancient Greece, ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persian Empire
- prehistoric commercebarter, obsidian, flint tools, shell beads, amber
- maritimeships, ship, boat, boats, anchors
- Age of ExplorationColumbus, Marco Polo, exploration, explorers, expeditions
trade routeseconomic isolation
Severing external trade ties
isolation · autarky · closed borders · blockades · embargoes
trade routeslocal markets
Nearby retail establishments
village markets · subsistence economy · bazaars · domestic trade · barter economy
trade routesdead ends
Routes with no exit
natural barriers · chokepoints · roadblocks · trade embargoes · border closures
trade, route, tradition, trader, trading, traditional, trademark, traded, trades