The map is interesting. I was a bit confused which one was the main route though. Is it, starting from Xian China, go west skirting the Gobi desert, then choose a mountain pass either north or south of Tajikistan, pass through modern day Iran, and finally to Constantinople?

It's not really accurate to think of a "main" route when discussing the silk roads. Different goods were transported by different routes, depending on the locations of markets and local conditions.

But yes, the chang'an<->gansu corridor<->Fergana valley is often called a principal overland route. Many of the caravans that went south of the pamirs would rejoin in Merv, while the maritime routes would often rejoin in a Mediterranean port like Tyre (during the roman period) or cities like Basra in the medieval period.

Just keep in mind that this map (and any other depiction) of the silk roads is necessarily incomplete. This map omits important areas like Kashmir because the authors simply haven't visited. Depicting the thousands of known sites is overwhelming, and the connections between them were often intermittent.

Previously, with some background from OP: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34684741

This is sick. A lot of history stuff gets buried under walls of text, but putting it on a map makes the scale and movement click instantly.

I thought for a second this was going to be an archival infographic of the dark web.

This. Is. Awesome!

About a month ago, I was telling my wife that I wish there was an app that had this type of feature! KUDOS to you! Thanks for sharing!