Where does the Silk Road start?

The starting point of the Silk Road is Luoyang. This is the view of Richthofen, the founder of the Silk Road.

1870, Richthofen came to Henan and inspected the silk and cotton market in Nanguan, Luoyang. Later, in his report on Henan and Shaanxi, he mentioned for the first time that there was an ancient trade route from Luoyang to Samarkand and called it the "Silk Road".

1877, Richthofen said in the first volume of his other book "China-Personal Travel and Research Achievements": "The commercial route from Henan Province (Luoyang) to Central Asia and westward to Rome was formed in the Roman Empire. China's silk reached Rome along this trade route, so it can be called the Silk Road. "

Here, Richthofen formally put forward the term "Silk Road" and put forward that Luoyang is the eastern starting point of the Silk Road. The term "Silk Road" was quickly accepted by the academic community and the public, and was officially used. But later scholars have different views on its connotation.

1936, Sven Hedin, a student from Richthofen, published the book "Silk Road" and spread it widely, and the dispute over the starting point began. Although the book still takes Richthofen's viewpoint as the starting point of the Silk Road, some scholars believe that Zhang Qian's mission to the Western Regions in the Western Han Dynasty has established contact with the Western Regions and formed a road passage, so the starting point of the Silk Road should be Chang 'an (now Xi 'an), the capital of the Western Han Dynasty. This view is gradually recognized by the domestic masses and has become the mainstream view today.