The Silk Road in Uzbekistan

The term Silk Road (Seidenstraße) was coined in 1877 by the German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen. It describes not one road but a web of caravan routes that connected China with Central Asia, India, Persia, the Middle East and Europe from around the 2nd century BC to the 15th century AD. Silk was only one of many goods, and most merchants travelled only part of the way, passing goods from city to city.

Central Asia was the crossroads of these routes, and the oases of the Zeravshan, Amu Darya and Fergana valleys, in today’s Uzbekistan, were among its most important stations.

Between the 4th and 8th centuries, the great traders of the Silk Road were the Sogdians, an Iranian people whose homeland, Sogdiana, was centred on Samarkand and Bukhara. Sogdian merchant communities lived from China to Byzantium, and their language was a lingua franca of the routes. Wall paintings found at Afrosiyob, the ancient site of Samarkand, show ambassadors from China, Korea and other lands arriving at the court of a Sogdian king in the 7th century. See Samarkand.

Along the routes travelled silk, porcelain, paper and tea from China; horses, cotton, glass, metalwork, spices, gems and slaves westward and eastward; and the famous Fergana horses, prized by Chinese emperors. Samarkand was famous for paper after the 8th century; see the Konigil paper mill.

Ideas travelled too. Buddhism spread from India through Termez to China; see things to do in Termez. Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Nestorian Christianity and Judaism all had communities in the region, and from the 8th century, Islam became the main religion. Knowledge of mathematics, astronomy and medicine passed along the routes, carried by scholars such as al-Khwarizmi and Ibn Sina.

• Samarkand: the great Sogdian city, later Timur’s capital, "the jewel of the Silk Road".
• Bukhara: a holy city and trading centre, with covered trading domes that still house craft shops.
• Khiva: an oasis at the edge of the desert, last stop before the caravans crossed to the Caspian and Russia; later a slave market.
• Termez: the crossing of the Amu Darya towards Afghanistan and India.
• Kokand and the Fergana Valley: the route to Kashgar and China.
• Shakhrisabz, Nurata and many smaller oases.

Between the cities stood caravanserais (rabats) and water cisterns (sardobas), such as Rabati Malik on the road between Samarkand and Bukhara.

The Silk Road brought wealth but also invaders. Alexander the Great passed through in the 4th century BC; Arab armies in the 8th century; the Mongols of Genghis Khan devastated the region in 1220–1221. In the 14th century, Amir Timur rebuilt Samarkand as the capital of a vast empire, bringing craftsmen from Persia, India and Syria, and his grandson Ulugbek made it a centre of science.

From the late 15th century, the overland routes declined. European sea routes to India and China, opened by Portuguese and other navigators, took over much long-distance trade. Central Asia fragmented into the khanates of Bukhara, Khiva and Kokand, which continued regional trade but lost their global importance, until the Russian conquest in the 19th century.

In 2023, UNESCO inscribed the Silk Roads: Zarafshan–Karakum Corridor, a transnational World Heritage site shared by Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, recognising the route between the Zeravshan valley and Merv. The historic centres of Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva and Shakhrisabz are also World Heritage sites.

Today, high-speed trains run along the old caravan route between Samarkand and Bukhara, and bazaars, workshops and teahouses keep alive the spirit of the Silk Road. See the illustrated Silk Road story, our Uzbekistan by train itinerary and the crafts route.