Disruption of Trade Routes by the Plague

Timeline

1. 1347–1350Port of Caffa, Crimea · CrimeaThe plague spread from Central Asia via the Silk Road to Caffa in Crimea, and Genoese merchant ships carried the epidemic to Mediterranean ports; port quarantines, halted merchant shipping, and crew deaths caused trade volume on the Black Sea–Mediterranean routes to plummet, with Venetian and Genoese merchants suffering heavy losses.
2. 1348–1353Levant–Red Sea trade route · LevantEpidemics in Syria, Egypt, and Mecca devastated the Mamluk hajj economy and Red Sea–Indian Ocean trade; caravans decreased, markets closed, and tax revenues plummeted. The western overland Silk Road connecting the Islamic world with the East was likewise short of capacity due to population losses.
3. 1340–1353Eurasian and African trade network · Eurasia and AfricaThe sharp population decline, labor shortage, and collapse of commercial confidence caused by the plague made the 1340s a turning point for global medieval trade; some trade routes never recovered to pre-epidemic levels, accelerating the restructuring of the old trade pattern and the shift of regional economic centers.