Continental highway

The Continental highway is an ancient trade route that starts in Zadad in the east and ends in Pearlhal in the west, crossing the majority of the continent of Mirateia.
Caravans will travel along the road, trading along the way and the wares of the caravans. They would also bring news from the places they had been to, making information slowly make its way across the continent. Due to the length of the route, very few caravans would travel the whole road. Instead, they would trade their wares between a staggered progression of middlemen.
The origins of the road are said to have been a route going from Zadad to a nearby neighbouring capital and acted as a royal road, and this would then be over the centuries be expanded until it reached Arborses who would have been a small trading town then but due to its strategic location on the isthmus that would, later on, be the border region between the Empire of Dercia and the Principality of Clifia. It wasn't until a few hundred years before the Ancient Empire reached the Dercian region that Pearlhal was connected to the Continental highway.
At the earliest point in history, Dercian scholars have been able to trace the trade between Pearlhal and Zadad. It can be traced back to around 3000 B.I.C old coins with the symbol of Zadad on the sides.
The Continental highway's many routes included a network of strategically located trading posts and market towns designed to streamline the transport, exchange, distribution and storage of goods and help encourage caravans to use the highway.
The highway and the wares it brought helped cities in Dercia to bring themself up to the level of the cities of the other parts of the continent as these had, for the longest time, along with the entire Dercian region, been seen as a backwater region with primitive people that didn't have civilization and with the continental highway, these cities were able to import "culture" from other parts of the continent, this then resulted in the unique mixture of culture that can be described as the Dercian culture.
One of these exports that were incorporated into the culture of Dercia is the Schools of magic and universities. Other imports were items such as paper, philosophy and science.
But the most crucial import that the Continental highway helped import was the Starlighters Pantheon, the incorporation of this religion to the local beliefs went surprisingly smooth as the locals just incorporated the new pantheons, gods, into theirs.

Alterations

Over the centuries, the highway has changed depending on local conditions; some trade towns that the route might go through may have been destroyed due to war, or rivers would change their flow and make some regions unprofitable to reach. The only constant for the highway would be its beginning and, to some degree its ending location.

Defenses

It's not a constant, but it's also not unheard of that local lords or a state would set up small outposts along the route, each with a handful of soldiers defending the local area from bandits and monsters that might be in the area.
Some of these outposts also acted as checkpoints, making the caravans pay a toll to pass.

Founding Date

Unknown

Type

Highway

The nation-states with access to the continental highway had obvious advantages regarding war. Thus the export of technology, such as catapults, had an enormous impact on the political history of Mirateia.

The Ancient Empire also expanded along the highway. Thus, the highway became central to their empire during war and peace.