Marco Polo was also amazed by China’s highly efficient postal service, which functioned as a delivery system for government documents, military orders, and official reports—nothing comparable existed in Europe at the time. The system relied on relay stations (驿站) spaced at regular intervals, allowing riders to travel no more than about forty kilometers before handing messages to fresh riders with new horses. These stations provided food and shelter for travelers and maintained hundreds of horses ready for dispatch. As a result, urgent messages could be transmitted over distances of two to three hundred kilometers per day. This postal network had already been well organized as early as the Qin Dynasty (秦朝) in the 3^rd century BCE.

Marco Polo witnessed the construction of China’s new capital, Dadu, and noted its perfect square layout, with each side measuring nearly eight kilometers, enclosed by walls with twelve gates, and containing the palace of the Great Khan at its center. The Travels describes the palace’s glazed roof—colored red, green, blue, and yellow—as shining like crystal. He portrayed the Grand Canal (大运河) as a vital trade artery transporting enormous quantities of goods such as silk, porcelain, and grain, and he was particularly impressed by its role in linking major cities and facilitating commerce among them. Marco Polo himself traveled to Kinsai, at the southern terminus of the Grand Canal. He described Hangzhou’s stone-paved streets, bathhouses, bustling markets, numerous bridges, and a population fifteen times that of Venice. He marveled at the city’s waterways, writing that “in every part of the city it is possible to travel either by land or by these streams”—a feature that must have reminded him of his native Venice.

There is no explicit mention of Marco Polo in surviving Chinese historical records, leading some earlier historians to question whether he ever reached China. Several factors, however, may explain this absence. The official History of the Yuan Dynasty (元史) was compiled during the subsequent Ming Dynasty (明朝) using incomplete records, as many Yuan documents had been lost or destroyed during periods of warfare. Moreover, traditional Chinese historiography prioritized Confucian scholars, court officials, and tributary envoys over merchants. Marco Polo’s role as a trader, and later as a tax collector, may have been considered unremarkable. As historian David Morgan of the University of Wisconsin–Madison observed, “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” In addition, scholars such as the sinologist Hans Ulrich Vogel of the University of Tübingen have argued that Marco Polo’s descriptions of China are remarkably accurate, noting that no contemporary Western, Arab, or Persian sources matched his detailed accounts of paper currency, salt production, or the layout of the walled city of Beijing.

Marco Polo played an important role in cultural exchange between China and Europe during the late 13^th and early 14^th centuries. Through his writings, many Europeans encountered detailed descriptions of China and other Asian civilizations for the first time. The Travels heightened European awareness of China and encouraged future explorations, including those undertaken by Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan. Marco Polo’s observations of China’s advanced economy influenced European merchants, while his accounts contributed to the expansion of trade in luxury goods from East Asia. His descriptions of innovations such as paper, paper currency, printing, salt production, and the use of coal helped broaden European technological horizons. Nevertheless, although Marco Polo might have served in an official capacity under Kublai Khan, his presence likely had little direct impact on Chinese society or politics.