The term “Silk Road” was coined in 1877 by the German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen, who needed a name for the overland routes linking China to the Mediterranean. He chose silk because it was the commodity Westerners most associated with China and because names that invoke specific luxury goods travel better than abstract geographical descriptions. The name has persisted for 150 years while misleading almost everyone who uses it about what the routes actually were and what actually moved along them.