Curated category
Populated places along the Silk Road
- CtesiphonCtesiphon sat on the eastern bank of the Tigris, about 35 kilometres southeast of what is now Baghdad. In the late 6th and early 7th century, some accounts…
- AlmatyAlmaty sits in the foothills of the Trans-Ili Alatau mountains, in southern Kazakhstan, with the Big Almaty and Small Almaty rivers running through it.
- KabulKabul sits at an altitude of 1,791 meters above sea level, one of the highest capital cities in the world. It is wedged into a narrow valley in the Hindu…
- HeratHerat sits south of the Paropamisus Mountains, in the fertile valley of the Hari River in western Afghanistan. A 14th-century geographer named Hamdallah…
- GhazniGhazni sits on a plateau more than two thousand meters above sea level in southeastern Afghanistan, and its name carries the weight of that altitude.
- BaghdadBaghdad sits on the banks of the Tigris in the heart of Iraq, a city of eight million people that has been continuously inhabited since at least the…
- AntiochAntioch was founded on the 22nd of May 300 BC, according to the chronicler John Malalas, at the moment Seleucus I Nicator performed a sacrifice to Zeus on a…
- SamarkandSamarkand sits in southeastern Uzbekistan, and for more than two thousand years it has been one of the most coveted cities on earth.
- AndijanAndijan sits at the southeastern edge of the Fergana Valley, hemmed in by the foothills of the Pamir and Tian Shan mountains, just a short distance from…
- AlexandriaAlexandria sits at the western edge of the Nile River Delta, stretching about 40 km along Egypt's northern coast. In April 331 BC, Alexander the Great chose…
- IstanbulIstanbul is the only city in the world that stands on two continents, with about two-thirds of its more than 15 million people living in Europe and the rest…
- ConstantinopleConstantinople stood at the crossing point of two continents and two seas, a city so singular that it was known simply as "the City" to everyone who lived…
- SeleuciaSeleucia was once one of the largest cities in the known world, a metropolis on the west bank of the Tigris River that ancient texts claim held 600,000…