Editing Silk Road (section)

=== Northern route ===
{{Main|Northern Silk Road}}
[[File:Silk Road in the I century AD - en.svg|thumb|upright=1.75|The Silk Road in the 1st century]]

The northern route started at [[Chang'an]] (now called [[Xi'an]]), an ancient capital of China that was moved further east during the [[Eastern Han dynasty|Later Han]] to [[Luoyang]]. The route was defined around the 1st century BCE when [[Han Wudi]] put an end to harassment by nomadic tribes.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Christian |first=David |year=2000 |title=Silk Roads or Steppe Roads? The Silk Roads in World History |journal=Journal of World History |volume=11 |issue=1 |pages=1–26 |issn=1045-6007 |jstor=20078816}}</ref>

The northern route travelled northwest through the Chinese province of [[Gansu]] from [[Shaanxi]] Province and split into three further routes, two of them following the mountain ranges to the north and south of the [[Taklamakan Desert]] to rejoin at [[Kashgar]], and the other going north of the [[Tian Shan]] mountains through [[Turpan]], [[Talgar]], and Almaty (in what is now southeast [[Kazakhstan]]). The routes split again west of Kashgar, with a southern branch heading down the Alai Valley towards [[Termez]] (in modern Uzbekistan) and [[Balkh]] (Afghanistan), while the other travelled through [[Kokand]] in the [[Fergana Valley]] (in present-day eastern Uzbekistan) and then west across the [[Karakum Desert]]. Both routes joined the main southern route before reaching ancient [[Merv]], Turkmenistan. Another branch of the northern route turned northwest past the [[Aral Sea]] and north of the [[Caspian Sea]], then and on to the Black Sea.

A route for caravans, the northern Silk Road brought to China many goods such as "dates, saffron powder and pistachio nuts from Persia; [[frankincense]], aloes and [[myrrh]] from [[Somalia]]; [[sandalwood]] from India; glass bottles from Egypt, and other expensive and desirable goods from other parts of the world."<ref>Ulric Killion, ''A Modern Chinese Journey to the West: Economic Globalisation And Dualism'', (Nova Science Publishers: 2006), p.66</ref> In exchange, the caravans sent back bolts of silk [[brocade]], [[Lacquerware|lacquer-ware]], and [[porcelain]].