Lost section of the Silk Road discovered in secret maps of the Japanese empire

Sheets created between 1901 and 1922 show everything in detail, from mills to shelters and water sources, adapted to the seasons.

They were kept secret for decades, and now they are showing, with great precision, a lost section of the famous , which crossed the Gobi Desert.

The set of Japanese military maps revealed the route known as Great Mongolian Roadwhich was for centuries a crucial axis of east-west circulation and, just over 100 years ago, was still used by camel caravans, according to the .

Over time, the route of the section was no longer identifiable on the ground and in modern cartography. The recent rediscovery results from the analysis of gaihōzu (“outer land maps”) produced by the Imperial Japanese Army between 1873 and 1945 for military planning purposes in the context of imperial expansion.

Despite this origin, these maps are currently considered one of the most complete cartographic records of East and Inner Asia: “time capsules” of landscapes transformed by modernization, describe the authors of a study in Journal of Historical Geography.

The team worked with four sheets from the set Toa Yochizu (“Maps of East Asia”), drawn up between 1901 and 1922. It covered a strip beginning near Mongolia’s eastern border with China and heading west. The authors explain that Japanese cartographers did not directly survey the terrain: they compiled and cross-referenced sources available at the time, such as Russian and Chinese maps, and created a detailed — and, supposedly, surprisingly reliable — portrait of the features that structured the ancient trade routes.

To test the reliability of the information, the researchers carried out field work and confirmed the accuracy of around 1200 kilometers of the route. At least 50 points considered key coincide with what is still possible to recognize in the field.

The water sources appear spaced, on average, about 24 kilometers (15 miles), a distance compatible with a typical daily journey of a camel caravan. In several sectors, the maps present route alternatives, a possible adjustment to the seasons; they also show water availability or safety conditions.

Classified during the Second World War, many of these maps were destroyed at the end of the global conflict, but thousands of pages (like these) survived and were eventually deposited in universities and libraries.