Layer 01
The Caravan Arteries
138 BCE – 1453 CE · Oasis & Post Stations
Oasis-hopping trade, Sogdian credit networks, and caravanserais across the Hexi Corridor, Pamir mountains, and Persian trading domes.
Explore Historic Waypoints →OpenPlanetView Network · Eurasian Desk
The Digital Silk Road
Traversing ancient trade corridors through modern lenses — from the Chang'an caravanserais to the rail terminals of today's Eurasian land bridge, documented street by street.
- Corridors Tracked
- 3 overland · middle · maritime
- Waypoints Mapped
- — ancient hubs & modern nodes
- Span
- ~12,000 km Xi'an → Venice, as the caravans walked
- Eras
- 2 caravan routes & container rails
Interactive Selector
Choose Your Corridor
Three routes, one continent. Each waypoint pairs its historic role with its function on the map today.
Geopolitical & Infrastructure Layers
The Living Corridor: Three Continuums
From ancient desert tracks to high-speed container rails and optical backbones, Eurasian connectivity has never ceased—it has only upgraded its rails.
Layer 02
Steel & Container Express
2013 – Present · Inland Dry Ports & Container Rails
China-Europe Railway Express (over 130,000 cumulative trips), Alashankou/Khorgos transshipment, and the Middle Corridor (TITR Caspian bypass & CKU railway line).
Rail Terminals Grid →Layer 03
Digital Silk Road & Settlement
Present · Fiber, Cloud & Programmable Value
Trans-Eurasian optical terrestrial cables, cloud data center clusters, and next-generation trade settlement corridors tracked across the network.
Settlement Intelligence →Regional Documentation
Five Regions, Two Millennia
Each regional hub pairs its ancient role with its modern logistics function.
Origin
Chang'an / Xi'an
Western Han capital · 202 BCE – 9 CE
The eastern terminus. Today one of China's major inland rail hubs, where China–Europe container expresses begin their westbound run.
OpenPlanetView →Gateway
Hexi Corridor & Dunhuang
Jade Gate pass · Mogao caves
The narrow desert funnel where every caravan had to pass — and where the route met the Buddhist, Persian and Graeco-Bactrian worlds.
OpenPlanetView →Crossroads
Samarkand & Bukhara
Sogdian merchant cities
A heart of trans-Eurasian commerce. Sogdian traders ran credit and agency networks along much of the route — among the earliest long-distance commercial financiers.
Documentation plannedBridge
Istanbul / Constantinople
Byzantine & Ottoman capital · 330–1453+
The western gate of the overland route. Its fall in 1453 is one of the factors historians cite in Europe's turn toward the sea routes.
OpenPlanetView →Terminus
Venice
Maritime republic · silk entrepôt
The western terminus where eastern goods were re-exported across Europe — until the Portuguese sea route to India opened in 1498.
Documentation plannedFrom Caravan to Container
2,000 Years in Six Stops
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Zhang Qian's Western Mission
Han imperial envoy opens the first documented east–west corridor across the Hexi passage into Central Asia, formalizing trade with Ferghana.
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Silk Reaches Rome
Direct economic interdependence: Roman chroniclers document substantial imperial bullion outflow to eastern markets for luxury textiles.
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Chang'an Cosmopolitan Hub
Tang Chang'an operates as the world's premier commercial crossroads, sustained by Sogdian long-distance banking, credit letters, and diplomatic missions.
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The Pax Mongolica Continuum
A unified continental postal and caravan road secures unhindered transit from Beijing to Tabriz and the Black Sea, recorded in Europe by Marco Polo.
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The Maritime Divergence
Constantinople falls to the Ottomans and Vasco da Gama reaches India by sea. The overland Eurasian axis enters a 500-year oceanic trade eclipse.
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Steel Replaces the Caravan
Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) launch in Astana and the creation of the unified China-Europe Railway Express brand systematically reactivate the inland land bridge.
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The Middle Corridor Surge (TITR & CKU)
Trans-Caspian container volumes quadruple via Aktau and Kuryk; mainline construction begins on the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan (CKU) link to bypass northern bottlenecks.
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The Digital & Multimodal Convergence
Over 11,000 container expresses running in single half-years, integrated digital customs, and Digital Silk Road terrestrial optical cables merge physical waypoints into a unified planetary grid.
The Wider Network
One Continent, One Lens
Silk Street View sits inside the OpenPlanetView ecosystem — physical-world documentation for global trade intelligence.