Silk and Spice Routes connected various empires across Europe and Asia, including the Roman Empire and the Han Dynasty, around the 1st century. These routes connected a number of trading posts and spanned a large part of the known world.

• The Silk Road is the main route from the Iranian Plateau to Western China, leading from oasis to oasis, and skirting the deserts of Central Asia, which was in use long before it was officially sanctioned. See also Ancient tea route.
• The Persian Royal Road was established by Persian kings, who set up way stations or caravanserai along the ancient Silk Road route across the Iranian Plateau.
• Incense Routes connected the Arabian Peninsula to North Africa, Levant and Europe and were largely run by Arabian traders who supplied those regions with frankincense and myrrh from Oman and the Hadhramaut.
• The ancient King's Highway and the Via Maris which connected Egypt and Mesopotamia via the Levant.

• The Amber Road connected the North Sea and Baltic Sea coasts by way of the Vistula and Dnieper rivers to Italy, Greece, Black Sea and Egypt. The Silk Road could then be reached from the Black Sea for further transporting Baltic amber.
• The Trade Route from the Varangians to the Greeks utilised portages in Russia to cross Europe and provided an alternative navigation route from the North Sea and the Baltic to the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, also reaching the Caspian Sea.
• Trans-Saharan trade routes connected West Africa and Mediterranean countries.
• The route of the annual Manila Galleon linking Manila with Acapulco was the most important trans-Pacific trade route in the 16th and 17th centuries.
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_routes