SITU · Virtual Silk Road Atlas

Explore Civilizations Along the Silk Roads

A virtual museum of the Silk Roads. A growing, shared 3D atlas of world heritage sites, from Chang’an to Cairo. Experience what others have created, and add what you make to the public atlas.

Walk the Roads · Meet the History

Truth in Place, History in Sight.

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— Three Pillars

What SITU does, in three lines.

— 01 / 03 —

A research copilot.

Research OS

SITU's AI Agent is built for heritage scholarship. It reads across papers, images, maps, and archives — transforming scattered evidence into traceable knowledge structures, visual insights and generation-ready prompts.

— 02 / 03 —

A marvelous 3D world.

Immersive Tour

SITU transforms historical evidence into immersive 3D worlds — walkable, interactive, and connected back to its sources. Every scene is more than a visualization. It is a journey through research, space, and time.

— 03 / 03 —

A growing cultural data infrastructure.

Living Database

Every upload, generation, review, and publication strengthens a shared cultural data foundation. Over time, SITU becomes more than a platform — it becomes a living infrastructure for Silk Road heritage.

SITU AI agent reading across papers, images, maps and archives

Immersive walkable 3D reconstruction of a Silk Road city

A growing shared cultural data infrastructure of the Silk Road

— The world is growing

Every visit, the Silk Road grows.

SITU is a living atlas. Cities, scholars, studies, and documents accumulate like stones on a cairn.

— Voices

Why scholars and travelers return.

SITU is built with its community. These are the people who use it daily — and their words shape every release.

Six months in, I cite SITU more than my own bookmarks folder. The cross-referencing of Persian and Tang sources alone saved me a sabbatical.

Carly

We use SITU's reconstructions as starting points for our Sogdian gallery design. The terrain and material accuracy is extraordinary — there is nothing else like it.

Winona

I walked through Samarkand at 3am from my dorm in Boston. It felt sacred. SITU made the Silk Road real to me before I ever boarded a plane.

Yatlong

Three chapters of my next book started inside SITU's Studio. It is the writing room I never had — sources, maps, conversation, all in one place.

Deng Kailing

I've written Silk-Road travel guides for 8 years. SITU is the first tool I recommend to readers — quieter than Google Earth, deeper than Wikipedia.

Feng Yanxuan

Our studio used SITU for terrain and material research on a hotel project near Dunhuang. It saved us six weeks of fieldwork before we even flew.

Guo Yicen

I came for the 3D reconstructions and stayed for the sources behind them. SITU is the only place where the map, the texts, and my own notes finally live in one room.

Hu Qixuan

The road is open.
Walk it.

Interested in SITU? You’re welcome to apply for an invitation code — tell us a little about who you are and what you’d like to explore, leave your email, and we’ll send you one.