Did Marco Polo actually go to China?

It is genuinely argued. The case against rests on silence: no Chinese or Mongol administrative record names him, and he omits things a resident might be expected to mention. The case for rests on detail he would have struggled to invent — the workings of paper currency, the salt administration, the postal relay system — and on the independently attested Mongol bridal mission he says he escorted home. Most specialists now accept he reached China; the argument is about what he did there and how much of the book is his.

Why are the dates all approximate?

Because the text is. The book was dictated years after the events to a romance writer, survives in about 150 disagreeing manuscripts with no authorial copy, and does not present a consistent internal chronology. Even the departure year differs between manuscripts. Giving these journeys exact dates would be inventing a precision the source does not have, so they are recorded to the year and marked approximate.

Why is Yangzhou marked differently from the other stops?

Because the claim attached to it — that Marco governed the city for three years — is contested in a way the rest of the route is not. No Chinese record supports it, the manuscripts differ on the wording, and many scholars read it as a later inflation or a mistranslation of a lesser office. It is shown because the text claims it, and marked because the claim is disputed. The route leg that depends on it is drawn as conditional.

Marco Polo — To the Court of Kublai Khan, c. 1271 — 1295

c. 1271 01 / 14 Venice Republic of Venice

Marco left with his father Niccolò and uncle Maffeo, who had already made one journey east and were returning with a papal reply for the Khan. He was about seventeen. The two friars sent with them turned back almost immediately.

“So they set out from Venice, taking Mark along with them, and went straight back to Acre, where they found the Legate of whom we have spoken.” — Marco Polo

Departure east with a papal commission.

c. 1271 02 / 14 Acre Crusader Levant

The last major Crusader port, and the point where the party collected oil from the lamp at the Holy Sepulchre — one of the two things the Khan had actually asked for. The hundred learned men he had also requested were never sent.

“The Legate giving them leave, they went from Acre to Jerusalem and got some of the Oil, and then returned to Acre, and went to the Legate and said to him: “As we see no sign of a Pope’s being made, we desire to return to the Great Kaan; for we have already tarried long, and there has been more than enough delay.”” — Marco Polo

The Levant. Holy oil collected for the Khan.

c. 1272 03 / 14 Hormuz Persian Gulf

They came here intending to continue by sea, inspected the ships — sewn with coconut cord rather than nailed — decided they were unseaworthy, and turned inland instead. That decision is what makes the outward journey an overland one and adds years to it.

“It is a very sickly place, and the heat of the sun is tremendous. If any foreign merchant dies there, the King takes all his property.” — Marco Polo

approximate The sea route rejected. The party turns north to the land road.

c. 1273–1274 04 / 14 Badakhshan and the Pamirs The roof of the world

The text says Marco fell ill and the party stayed a year in the mountains for his recovery. His description of the high plateau — the thin air, fires that will not burn properly, pasture that fattens lean horses in days — is the first account of high-altitude conditions in European writing, and it reads like something witnessed.

“The plain is called PAMIER, and you ride across it for twelve days together, finding nothing but a desert without habitations or any green thing, so that travellers are obliged to carry with them whatever they have need of. The region is so lofty and cold that you do not even see any birds flying.” — Marco Polo

approximate A year in the mountains. The first European description of altitude sickness.

c. 1274 05 / 14 Kashgar Western Tarim Basin

The junction where the northern and southern routes around the Taklamakan meet. From here the road divides around a desert nobody crosses directly, and the text takes the southern branch through the oasis towns.

“Cascar is a region lying between north-east and east, and constituted a kingdom in former days, but now it is subject to the Great Kaan. The people worship Mahommet. There are a good number of towns and villages, but the greatest and finest is Cascar itself. The inhabitants live by trade and handicrafts; they have beautiful gardens and vineyards, and fine estates, and grow a great deal of cotton.” — Marco Polo

The Silk Road oases. The desert road begins.

c. 1274 06 / 14 Lop and the Taklamakan Eastern Tarim Basin

The desert of voices. The text describes sands that call travellers away from the track by name until they are lost — a piece of caravan folklore recorded straight, and one of the passages that make the book so hard to classify as either report or romance.

“On quitting this city they enter the Desert. The length of this Desert is so great that ’tis said it would take a year and more to ride from one end of it to the other. And here, where its breadth is least, it takes a month to cross it.” — Marco Polo

approximate The desert crossing, thirty days by the text's reckoning.

c. 1275 07 / 14 Shangdu The Khan's summer capital

The summer capital, its site securely known and excavated. The text's description of the park, the palace and the movable cane pavilion is the passage that reached Coleridge five centuries later by way of an English translation and became Xanadu.

“There is at this place a very fine marble Palace, the rooms of which are all gilt and painted with figures of men and beasts and birds, and with a variety of trees and flowers, all executed with such exquisite art that you regard them with delight and astonishment.” — Marco Polo

Arrival at the Khan's summer court.

c. 1275–1291 08 / 14 Khanbaliq Dadu — Beijing

Some seventeen years in the Mongol empire, in a role the text describes vaguely and no external record confirms. The account of the city, the postal relay system and the issuing of paper money is detailed and broadly accurate; the account of Marco's own position in it is not corroborated anywhere.

“You must know that the city of Cambaluc hath such a multitude of houses, and such a vast population inside the walls and outside, that it seems quite past all possibility.” — Marco Polo

Seventeen years in Kublai Khan's service, in an unestablished capacity.

c. 1282–1287, if at all 09 / 14 Yangzhou Grand Canal, Jiangsu

The single most argued-over sentence in the book. It is a useful test case for the whole work: the text is specific, the external record is silent, and the manuscript tradition is not stable enough to tell us exactly what was originally claimed.

“And Messer Marco Polo himself, of whom this book speaks, did govern this city for three full years, by the order of the Great Kaan.” — Marco Polo

disputed A disputed governorship. The strongest single test of the book's reliability.

c. 1291 10 / 14 Quanzhou Zaiton, Fujian

One of the great ports of the medieval world, and the point of departure for the return. The Polos left as part of an escort taking a Mongol princess by sea to marry a Persian ruler — a mission independently attested in Persian sources, which is among the better external footholds the whole narrative has.

“And I assure you that for one shipload of pepper that goes to Alexandria or elsewhere, destined for Christendom, there come a hundred such, aye and more too, to this haven of Zayton; for it is one of the two greatest havens in the world for commerce.” — Marco Polo

Departure by sea, escorting a bride to Persia.

c. 1292 11 / 14 Sumatra Northern Sumatra

Held up five months waiting for the monsoon to turn, and stockaded ashore against the people of the interior. The text's description of the rhinoceros here — noted as nothing like the unicorn of the bestiaries — is one of the moments where a real observation visibly collides with what the author expected to find.

“When you leave the Island of Pentam and sail about 100 miles, you reach the Island of JAVA THE LESS. For all its name ’tis none so small but that it has a compass of two thousand miles or more.” — Marco Polo

approximate Five months waiting on the monsoon.

c. 1293 12 / 14 Ceylon Sri Lanka

Pearls, rubies and the mountain with the footprint on it, which the text reports as being venerated by two different faiths for two different reasons. The passage on Indian pearl fishing that follows is among the book's most detailed pieces of economic reporting.

“You must know that it has a compass of 2400 miles, but in old times it was greater still, for it then had a circuit of about 3600 miles, as you find in the charts of the mariners of those seas.” — Marco Polo

approximate The Indian Ocean crossing, by way of Ceylon and the Malabar coast.

c. 1294 13 / 14 Hormuz Persian Gulf — return

The sea voyage cost most of the party their lives; the text gives a heavy death toll among the escort. The princess arrived to find her intended husband dead and married his son instead. Kublai Khan died while the Polos were still in Persia, which removed both their protector and any reason to go back.

“When you have got to the foot of this descent you find another beautiful plain called the PLAIN OF FORMOSA. This extends for two days’ journey; and you find in it fine streams of water with plenty of date-palms and other fruit-trees.” — Marco Polo

approximate Persia reached. Kublai Khan dies; the Polos turn for home.

c. 1295 14 / 14 Venice Return

Home after roughly twenty-four years. The story that the family were not recognised until they unpicked jewels from the seams of their travelling clothes comes from a much later biographical tradition, not from the book. Within a few years Marco was a prisoner of Genoa and dictating to Rustichello, which is the only reason any of it survives.

“Having left Kiacatu they travelled day by day till they came to Trebizond, and thence to Constantinople, from Constantinople to Negropont, and from Negropont to Venice. And this was in the year 1295 of Christ’s Incarnation.” — Marco Polo

Return to Venice. The book follows from captivity.

Marco Polo

Venice

The voyage in brief

Ship's Log

Landfalls & Plates

Reckoning

Difficulty

The route today

How to read the route

How the world was understood

Primary Sources

Further Reading

On Screen

Questions

Did Marco Polo actually go to China?

Why are the dates all approximate?

Why is Yangzhou marked differently from the other stops?

Editorial note

Marco Polo

Venice

The voyage in brief

Ship's Log

Landfalls & Plates

Reckoning

Difficulty

The route today

How to read the route

How the world was understood

Primary Sources

Further Reading

On Screen

Questions

Did Marco Polo actually go to China?

Why are the dates all approximate?

Why is Yangzhou marked differently from the other stops?

Editorial note

Counting readers