Spread+of+The+Black+Plague

The Black Plague started somewhere in the Gobi desert(northern China, southern Mongolia) in the 1320s. Although no one actually knows how it started a popular theory is that a climate shift around that time period may have been responsible for the virulence of the outbreak. Soon after the infection took hold it spread along the Silk Road on ships and wagons in the form of infected people and rats through the Middle East and India and into Europe. It is the current opinion of most historians that Yersinia Pestis was the bacteria that caused the Black Plague.

A list of where and when the Black Plague spread:

Gobi Desert-1320s China/Middle East-1320s-1340s Volga River-1345 Caucasus, Crimea-1346 Constantinople, Alexandria, Cyprus, Italy-1347 Paris, Germany, England-1348 Northern Europe-1349-1350 Russia-1351

Spread of the Black Plague in Asia Spread of the Black Plague in Europe [Image of painting]. Retrieved October 13, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Blackdeath2.gif