Silk Road Travel

A Note About the Spelling of Names

Read any book about this part of the world and at the start there will be chapter explaing which version of the spelling of placenames the author is using and why.  Not one place name between  China and Turkey are written in our alphabet by their inhabitants they are variously in Chinese  Arabic and Cyrillic scripts. So the  English is an approximation  and has changed over the years (anyone remember Peking and Canton?) So I've basically used the term you'll most likely to know a city's name by e.g. Kashgar - though on a Chinese train timetable you'll only find Kashi. If the name is obscure anyways e.g. Bishkek (capital of Kyrgyzstan) I'll just use what the Lonely Planet or Bradt guidebooks use - so if you are planning a trip you'll recognize it.