Maritime Silk Road in the context of "Lashed-lug boat"

Guangdong is a coastal province in South China, on the north shore of the South China Sea with Guangzhou as the capital. With a population of 127.06 million (as of 2023) across a total area of about 179,800 km (69,400 sq mi), Guangdong is China's most populous province and its 15th-largest by area, as well as the third-most populous country subdivision in the world.

Guangdong's economy is the largest of any provincial-level division in China, with a GDP of CN¥14.16 trillion (US$2.0 trillion in GDP nominal) in 2024, contributing approximately 10.5 percent of mainland China's economic output. It has a diversified economy, and was known as the starting point of ancient China's Maritime Silk Road. It is home to the production facilities and offices of a wide-ranging set of Chinese and foreign corporations. Guangdong has benefited from its proximity to the financial hub of Hong Kong, which it borders to the south. Guangdong also hosts the largest import and export fair in China, the Canton Fair, in Guangzhou. The Pearl River Delta Economic Zone, a Chinese megalopolis, is a core for high tech, manufacturing and international trade. In this zone are two of the four top Chinese cities and the top two Chinese prefecture-level cities by GDP: Guangzhou and Shenzhen, the first special economic zone in the country. These two are among China's most populous and important cities, and have become two of the world's most populous megacities and leading financial centres in the Asia–Pacific region.

Srivijaya (Indonesian: Sriwijaya), also spelled Sri Vijaya or Sriwijaya, was a Malay thalassocratic empire based on the island of Sumatra (in modern-day Indonesia) that influenced much of Southeast Asia. Srivijaya was an important centre for the expansion of Buddhism from the 7th to 11th century AD. Srivijaya was the first polity to dominate much of western Maritime Southeast Asia. Due to its location, Srivijaya developed complex technology using maritime resources. In addition, its economy became progressively reliant on the booming trade in the region, thus transforming it into a prestige goods-based economy.

The earliest reference to it dates from the 7th century. A Tang dynasty Chinese monk, Yijing, wrote that he visited Srivijaya in 671 for six months. The earliest known inscription in which the name Srivijaya appears also dates from the 7th century in the Kedukan Bukit inscription found near Palembang, Sumatra, dated 16 June 682. Between the late 7th and early 11th century, Srivijaya rose to become a hegemon in Southeast Asia. It was involved in close interactions, often rivalries, with the neighbouring Mataram Kingdom, Khmer Empire and Champa. Srivijaya's main foreign interest was nurturing lucrative trade agreements with China which lasted from the Tang to the Song dynasty. Srivijaya had religious, cultural and trade links with the Buddhist Pala of Bengal, as well as with the Islamic Caliphate in the Middle East.

The Ming treasure voyages were maritime expeditions undertaken by Ming China's treasure fleet between 1405 and 1433. The Yongle Emperor ordered the construction of the fleet in 1403. The grand project resulted in seven far-reaching ocean voyages to the coastal territories and islands of the South China Sea and Indian Ocean. Admiral Zheng He was commissioned to command the fleet for the expeditions. Six of the voyages occurred during the Yongle Emperor's reign (r. 1402–1424) and the seventh voyage occurred during the Xuande Emperor's reign (r. 1425–1435). The first three voyages reached up to Calicut on India's Malabar Coast, while the fourth voyage went as far as Hormuz in the Persian Gulf. In the last three voyages, the fleet traveled up to the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa.

The Chinese expeditionary fleet was heavily militarized and carried great amounts of treasures, which served to project Chinese power and wealth to the known world. They brought back many foreign ambassadors whose kings and rulers were willing to declare themselves tributaries of China. During the course of the voyages, they destroyed Chen Zuyi's pirate fleet at Palembang, captured the Sinhalese Kotte kingdom of King Alakeshvara, and defeated the forces of the Semudera pretender Sekandar in northern Sumatra. The Chinese maritime exploits brought many countries into China's tributary system and sphere of influence through both military and political supremacy, thus incorporating the states into the greater Chinese world order under Ming suzerainty. Moreover, the Chinese restructured and established control over an expansive maritime network in which the region became integrated and its countries became interconnected on an economic and political level.

Yijing (635–713 CE), formerly romanized as I-ching or I-tsing, born Zhang Wenming, was a Tang-era Chinese Buddhist monk and renowned travel writer. His account of his travels are an important source for the history of the medieval kingdoms along the sea route between China and India, especially Srivijaya in Indonesia. He also gave accounts of the Gupta Period in ancient India. A student of the Buddhist university at Nālandā (now in Bihar, India), he was also responsible for the translation of many Buddhist texts from Sanskrit and Pali into Chinese.

Yangshan Port (Chinese: 洋山港, p Yángshān Gǎng, Wu Yan-se Kaon), formally the Yangshan Deep-Water Port (洋山深水港, p Yángshān Shēnshuǐ Gǎng, Wu Yan-se Sen-sy Kaon), is an offshore deep-water port for containerization in Hangzhou Bay south of Shanghai, China, built on land reclamation joining the Lesser Yangshan Island with numerous other nearby islands of the northwestern Zhoushan archipelago. It is connected to Shanghai's Pudong New Area on the mainland by the 32.5 km-long (20.2 mi) Donghai Bridge, forming part of the Port of Shanghai, while the other islands of Yangshan archipelago (including the Greater Yangshan Island, where the civilian population of the archipelago live) are administered separately as part of Zhejiang's Shengsi County.

Yangshan Port is part of China's Maritime Silk Road, built to allow the Port of Shanghai to grow despite shallow waters near the shore. Prior to its construction, the Port of Shanghai was predominantly based around the mouth of the Huangpu River, which is too shallow to handle large container ships, forcing the port to often perform mid-stream operations within the Yangtze estuary, which often had to wait for the high tide hours, severely restricting the port's capacity. The construction of Yangshan Port allows berths with depths of up to 15 m (49 ft) to be built, and can handle today's largest container ships. In mid-2011, port officials said the port was on track to move 12.3 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) during the year, up from 10.1 million TEUs in 2010, overtaking Port of Singapore to become the world's busiest container port. In 2015, the port handled 36.54 million TEUs, and by 2019, its throughput had increased to 43.35 million TEU.

The archaeology of Indonesia is the study of the archaeology of the archipelagic realm that today forms the nation of Indonesia, stretching from prehistory through almost two millennia of documented history. The ancient Indonesian archipelago was a geographical maritime bridge between the political and cultural centers of Ancient India and Imperial China, and is notable as a part of ancient Maritime Silk Road.

The first government institution of archaeology was officially formed in 1913 with the establishment of Oudheidkundige Dienst in Nederlandsch-Indië (Archaeological Service in the Dutch East Indies) under Professor Dr. N.J. Kromm.