• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
• /
• v.11 no.1
• /
• pp.29-39
• /
• 2005

Silk Road is the term involving all traffic roads connecting the East to the West, and ancient Korean culture has became globalized through Silk Road. In this paper, natural environment of Silk Road is considered as fundamental data in order to understand the Western culture introduced through Silk Road. Silk Road region is classified into Loess Plateau district; arid basin district; and high mountains district; Hesi Corridor(河西回廊) is the transition zone that the southeastern part of $W{\breve{u}}w{\bar{e}}i$(武威) is Loess Plateau district; other northwestern part is arid basin district Loess Plateau district, composed of homogeneous fines, has experienced dramatic soil loss by bringing under cultivation. At recent times, reforestation and construction of check-dam have been in operation to cope with this problems, Arid basin district; although at midlatitude, is desert climate because it is far from the ocean and is surrounded by high mountains. Oasis of Hesi Corridor is continuous linearly, but that of arid basin district is sporadic. In $H{\bar{a}}mi$ and $T{\breve{u}}l{\breve{u}}f{\bar{a}}n$(吐魯番) fruit-growing using karez flourishes, And glacier of $Ti{\bar{a}}nshian$(天山) Mts. and $Q{\bar{i}}lian$(祁連) Mts. is very important to arid basin district because of supplying water resource. In the tundra zone surrounding alpine glacier, are distributed widely solifluction lobes and earth hummocks.