Book of Roads and Kingdoms (Ibn Khordadbeh book)

The Book of Roads and Kingdoms (Arabic: كِتَاب ٱلْمَسَالِك وَٱلْمَمَالِك‎, Kitāb al-Masālik wa-l-Mamālik) is a 9th-century geography text by the Persian geographer Ibn Khordadbeh. It maps and describes the major trade routes of the time within the Muslim world, and discusses distant trading regions such as Japan, Korea, and China.[1] It was written during the reign of Al-Mu'tamid in around 870 CE while its author was Director of Posts and Police for the Abbasid province of Jibal.

The work uses much of the Persian administrative terms, gives considerable attention to pre-Islamic Iranian history, uses "native Iranian cosmological division system of the world". These all show "the existence of Iranian sources at the core of the work".[2]

Claudius Ptolemy, Greek and Pre-Islamic Iranian history have clear influence on the work.[2]

The book is also referred to in English as The Book of Roads and Provinces.