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Sourcing: Marco Polo was a Christian Venetian trader who traveled the entire length of the Silk Road. He was and still is the foremost primary source on the Mongolians.

Being a Christian post Crusades, he spoke highly of Christians, but he also spoke demeaningly of Muslims.

Additionally, Marco Polo wrote for his fellow Christians, as shown by his references to the Pope, of which only Christians would know.

The journeys he conducted throughout his lifetime had a lasting impact on  Europe’s knowledge of the Asian world. His travels connected Europe and Asia, and without him, Europeans might not have found out about Asian culture and trade as quickly.

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As Mosul was subject to the Mongol King, who favored craftsmen and traders, the Kingdom of Mosul was a megalopolis for art and design. This country was a primary producer of Muslin, which was a highly valued cloth of silk and gold. As a result, Mosul was a prosperous trading city in which a variety of goods were traded and produced.

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By this time period, Iraq was a significant center for trade and had been for centuries.

Tauris was a large city in Iraq that was located on multiple trade routes, one being the Silk Road. The geographical location of it enabled Tauris to be accessible to a large range of traders, so there was a great diversity of goods, which allowed it to be a prosperous trade city.

The art of handicraft was one of the biggest aspects of life in Tauris. Men weaved many valuable things made from silk and gold, which attracted merchants from further away countries like India. Despite the many merchants, many of the people living there were poor and Polo states there were many different social classes.

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It is unsure where Casem is located, but it is around where this pin is located.

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Marco Polo talked highly about the Mongols, calling Genghis Khan “a man of great worth, and of great ability, and valor.” He also noted their peaceful behavior, doing no harm to the people when they conquered the land. Whether or not Marco Polo genuinely viewed the Mongolians as good people is debatable, seeing as he would probably not want to offend the Mongols by saying bad things about them. The Mongols were also generally considered as fiends for their harsh yet efficient military tactics and their powerful cavalry. However, it is true that the Mongols were argumentatively harmless to the people they conquered, and they did a lot of good for traders safety, maximizing trade, and promoting the arts.
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According to Wikipedia, "the great island of Java... was the actual island of Sumatra".

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Manzi was located in southern China.

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Malabar Coast, Vallarpadam, Kochi, Ernakulam, Kerala

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During this time period, travelers would often embellish or completely make up the places they traveled to. Marco Polo was no different, as he completely made up the fact he went to Madagascar. We know this because of the outlandish claims that Marco Polo made regarding what was in Madagascar.

To start, he claimed the people only ate the flesh of camels and killed an incredible amount daily. Secondly, he claimed that the Gryphon, a creature of fiction, was indeed real. He described the Gryphon as a massive eagle that was “so strong that it will seize an elephant in its talons and carry him high into the air, and drop him so that he is smashed to pieces; having so skilled him the bird gryphon swoops down on him and eats him at leisure.”

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The Crusades were a series of religious conquests from 1095 to 1291. Christians and Muslims fought over sites considered sacred to both groups (as they are both Abrahamic religions and share many common ideas). There were eight major Crusades in total.

These Crusades affected Marco Polo’s thoughts on Muslims, as he was a Christian. Due to the fact that Christians and Muslims were warring, this lead to Marco Polo having a distasteful view of Muslims, often calling them “worshippers of Mahommet” and evil. This prejudice is often reflected in the accounts of his travels, especially in large, multicultural trading cities where he describes the people as “…a very evil generation” (Province of Tauris) and “…rude…with an uncouth language…” (Province of Turkey).

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After the Mongols took over cities on the Silk Road, they began revitalizing it, which opened more trade towards the East. They also offered protection to traders that traveled along the route as long as they paid the Mongol taxes.

This revitalization combined with the reopening of the Ming Dynasty allowed Marco Polo an easier time traveling the entirety of the Silk Road. The protection offered to traders such as Marco Polo enabled him to travel safely, and also contributed to his high praise for the Mongols and the Khan.

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Kashgar and Samarkand were incredibly important trading cities during Marco Polo’s time, with Marco Polo describing the city as “one of immense size.” Many people of different cultures gathered here, resulting in the creation of various ethnic diasporas.

Kashgar was situated between two mountains, meaning that it controlled various trading routes, as crossing the mountains required merchants to pass through it. Additionally, Kashgar was an oasis city with incredibly fertile soil, which proved advantageous for farming, and therefore resulted in many agricultural crops. One of these crops was cotton, which was produced in immense quantities. This allowed for the creation of other materials, specifically, handicrafts. Handicrafts made in Kashgar were a major driving point for foreign merchants to want to trade with them. These geographical advantages lead to it becoming an important trading city in this time period.

Additional sources:

https://www.britannica.com/science/oasis-geological-feature

https://www.britannica.com/place/Kashgar

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The city of Hormuz was an island with a harbor that took many days of travel to arrive at. Marco Polo described this place as “a city of immense trade.” The heat was enough to kill people if they weren’t careful, and if this happened to traveling merchants, the King would take all of their property.

As a result of the intense temperatures, residents of Hormuz would avoid the cities and would escape to the country during the summers, where it was cooler.

The geographical location on the coast of the Arabian Sea made overseas trade possible, so trade was a crucial part of life in Hormuz. Polo states that merchants from countries like India came over in ships that were loaded with spices, stones, pearls, cloths of silk, and elephant teeth. Hormuz merchants bought the goods and sold them throughout the rest of the trading world, making Hormuz a very important trading city, especially to inland regions which couldn’t access overseas trading routes.