Background music: 陳綺貞-旅行的意義

The Silk Road was an interconnected series of routes through Southern Asia traversed by caravan and ocean vessel, and connecting Chang'an (today's Xi'an), China, with Antioch, Asia Minor, as well as other points. Its length carries over 4,000 miles long. Its influence carried over into Korea and Japan.

These exchanges were significant not only for the development and flowering of the great civilization of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, Persia, India and Rome but also helped to lay the foundations of our modern world. Silk road is a translation from the German Seidenstrasse, the term first used by German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen in the 19th century.

絲綢之路，指西漢（前202年-8年）時，由張騫出使西域開闢的從長安（今西安）經甘肅、新疆，到中亞、西亞，並聯結地中海各國的陸上通道。因為由這條路西運的貨物中以絲綢製品的影響最大，故得此名。其基本走向定於兩漢時期，包括南道、中道、北道三條路線。

廣義的絲綢之路指從上古開始陸續形成的，遍及歐亞大陸甚至包括北非和東非在內的長途商業貿易和文化交流線路的總稱。除了上述的路線之外，還包括在南北朝時期形成，在明末發揮巨大作用的海上絲綢之路和與西北絲綢之路同時出現，在元末取代西北絲綢之路成為路上交流通道的南方絲綢之路等等。絲綢之路（德語：die Seidenstrasse）一詞最早來自於德國地理學家費迪南˙馮˙李希霍芬1877出版的《中國》，有時也簡稱為絲路。