For those who may be wondering, the image they display in the article is the location of modern Kyrgyzstan. The large basin in the left image is the Fergana Valley; that of the lower left, the Tarim Basin in modern Xinjiang, China; and the north is the Kazakh steppe.

Historically, the Silk Road (in this region) ran from Kashgar in the Tarim Basin to Osh in the Fergana Valley, although I'm not exactly sure which passes were taken. It always struck me as odd that the Silk Road didn't pass through the Kyzyl-Suu river valley, which is the only road link you can see today on Google Maps. On the other hand, this visualization does seem to reinforce the idea that natural trading paths did not cross the mountain ranges in ways that would reinforce that link but rather focused on a more circuitous route via the bulk of Kyrgyzstan.

I suppose it makes more sense, given the scope of most people's lives at the time, than the notion of a planned route from start to finish. As I understand it, the "Road" was less a journey for a single merchant, as it was the game of telephone played with products by dozens of merchants.

Basically, a human telegraph for tangible goods, with a mark-up at each step. With that in mind, the price of cloves in Medieval Europe starts to make a lot of sense, as do the crazy stories behind some of the spices. See: The alleged source of cinnamon!

Yes and communities and networks of merchants (e.g. Sogdians) ensured trust and fidelity in delivery of goods and money. A remnant of the Silk Road is the continuing practice of 'hawala': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala

Their map is difficult to understand. I can't read the labels (weird font, too small) and I can't figure out what part of the world I'm looking at.

The following map gives me some context:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Silk_rou...

Red are land routes and blue are the sea/water routes. The OP's map appears to be the area above China and India where you see two parallel red lines.

Close, but not quite. I first interpreted the large oval in the upper right of the image as the Tarim Basin (the large oval desert in China). However, given the city names, it became clear that the distances didn't work. The large oval in the image is in fact the oval lake in Kyrgyzstan (slightly above the northernmost red line).

The lines on Wikipedia's map are so thick that they obscure most of the relevant features in the image.

The bounds of the image on Google Maps is roughly this: https://goo.gl/maps/akaV2mcgUXv (I don't know how well the exact extent matches up). Bishkek and Almaty are at the northern edge of the image, Kashgar at the southern edge, Karakol at the eastern edge, and Kokand at the western edge. In simpler terms, just make sure you can see all of Kyrgyzstan and not really much more than all Kyrgyzstan.

Ooooh, that Silk Road.

I was thinking of a different Silk Road that was less grass-routes movement and more movement of grass and 'roots'.

I came into this thread expecting an article about how Silk Road was originally used by pot dealers... not what I expected but still interesting :P

I thought the title was some kind of pun on "grassroots movement".

It is.

Headline is missing a definite article. It says 'Silk Road', but means 'The Silk Road'.

It's wonderful that the pun works either way!