Researchers note that the Great Wall familiar to us today is a Ming structure, post-dating Marco Polo's travels by more than two centuries.

Map of Marco Polo's travels in 1271 – 1295.

Despite the extremely unreliable and often fantastical nature of the travels it describes, it was used as a work of reference — Christopher Columbus, for example, was heavily influenced by both this work and Marco Polo's earlier Il Milione ( Adams 53 ).

In Marco Polo and the Sleeping Beauty, co-written with Grania Davis, the background of Marco Polo's travels in the Mongol Empire is borrowed for an original story.

The book is Polo's account of his travels to China, which he calls Cathay ( north China ) and Manji ( south China ).

The Fallen Blade is the first of three novels set in an alternative early-15th century featuring Tycho, fallen angel and assassin, at the Venetian court, in a Venice where Marco Polo's family have been hereditary dukes for five generations and the Mongol emperor Tamberlaine has conquered China, making him the most powerful ruler in the world.

Marco Polo's systematic observations of nature, anthropology, and geography are another example of studying human variation across space.

In his journal, Houtman identified these coasts with Marco Polo's land of Beach, or Locach, as shown on maps of the time such as that of Jan Conrnelis van Linschoten.

In his journal, Houtman identified these coasts with Marco Polo's land of Beach, or Locach, as shown on maps of the time such as that of Conrnelis van Linschoten.

Marco Polo's stay was restricted to the coastal areas, and he never ventured inland to directly verify such claims.

Ricci supported his arguments by numerous correspondences between Marco Polo's accounts and his own observations:

Japan was considered as a country immensely rich in precious metals, mainly owing to Marco Polo's accounts of gilded temples and palaces, but also due to the relative abundance of surface ores characteristic of a volcanic country, before large-scale deep-mining became possible in Industrial times.

The Great Walls were built to keep out northern invaders, whereas the ruling dynasty during Marco Polo's visit were those very northern invaders.

The tales of the fida ' is training collected from anti-Ismaili historians and orientalists writers were confounded and compiled in Marco Polo's account, in which he described a " secret garden of paradise ".

Doubtless it was Marco Polo's description that inspired Antonio Pigafetta, one of Magellan's companions, who wrote or had ghost-written an embroidered account of the circumglobal voyage ; in Pigafetta's account the home grounds of the roc were the seas of China.

Spanish Consul, Antonio Mantilla, Polo's replacement, agreed with the reparations while President Grant's 1875 State of the Union Address announced that reparations were near, quieting anger over the Virginius affair in the United States.

When in the 16th century the Western Europeans reached China via Malacca and South China, they were not initially aware that China is the same country as " Cathay " about which they had known from Marco Polo, or that the " Cambalu " of Marco Polo's fame is Beijing.

late 13th century ), was an Italian romance writer best known for cowriting Marco Polo's autobiography while they were in prison together in Genoa.

At the time of Marco Polo's visit in 1292 the people were described as " wild idolaters " who had not been influenced by outside religions, however by Ibn Battuta's visit in 1345 Arab traders had established river-ports along the northern coasts of Sumatra and Sultan Al-Malik Al-Dhahir had recently converted to Islam.

According to Marco Polo's Travels, the war between the Prester and Genghis started when Genghis, new ruler of the rebellious Tartars, asked for the hand of Prester John's daughter in marriage.

As with other European languages, English historically had a variety of names for Korea derived from Marco Polo's rendering of Goryeo, " Cauli " ( see Revival of the names above ).

During his first 15 years in China ( 1583 – 1598 ) Matteo Ricci formed a strong suspicion that Marco Polo's " Cathay " is simply the " Tatar " ( i. e., Mongol ) name for the

For the first time in Polo's history, the car was declared European Car of the Year, for 2010.

Among the frequented routes of the Silk Route was the Burmese route extending from Bhamo, which served as a path for Marco Polo's visit to Yunnan and Indian Buddhist missions to Canton in order to establish Buddhist monasteries.

Mendonça is named by Barros as the captain of a ship that left Lisbon in 1519, and as having been given instructions to search for Marco Polo's legendary Isles of Gold, said to lie to the south of Sumatra: At the end of June of the year 1520, a ship arrived that had departed the Kingdom that year, the Captain and Pilot being Pedro Eanes, nicknamed the Frenchman, who being a diligent man and one well versed in matters of the sea, King Manuel had entrusted with letters for Diogo Lopez concerning service matters.

Marco Polo's account of paper money during the Yuan Dynasty is the subject of a chapter of his book, The Travels of Marco Polo, titled " How the Great Kaan Causeth the Bark of Trees, Made Into Something Like Paper, to Pass for Money All Over his Country.

Marco Polo's other legacies include Venice Marco Polo Airport, the Marco Polo sheep, and several books and films.

One possible place of birth is Venice's former contrada of San Giovanni Crisostomo, which is sometimes presented by historians as the birthplace, and it is generally accepted that Marco Polo was born in the Venetian Republic with most biographers pointing towards Venice itself as Marco Polo's home town.

While Polo's book describes paper money and the burning of coal, it fails to mention the Great Wall of China, chopsticks, and footbinding, making skeptics wonder if Marco Polo had really gone to China, or wrote his book based on hearsay.

Yet, if the purpose of Polo's tales was to impress others with tales of his high esteem and fond regard in an advanced civilization, then it is possible that Polo shrewdly would omit those details that would cause his listeners to scoff at the Chinese with a sense of European superiority.

* 1266-Mongol leader Khan sends Marco Polo's father and uncle, Niccolo and Matteo Polo, back to Europe with a request to the Pope to send 100 Christian missionaries ( only two responded and one died before reaching Mongol territory )

The objects in " Cataio " are based on Marco Polo's description and include the capital Khanbaliq | Cambalu, Xanadu | Xandu, and a Marco Polo Bridge | marble bridge

The Mark III Polo or Typ 6N, ( sometimes referred to as the " Mark 4 " by enthusiasts as it is the Polo's fourth guise ) appeared in 1994, and was a completely new model ( on a new chassis ), available as 3-and 5-door hatchback versions, the latter making VW the last major European manufacturer to finally offer four doors in this class.

Ralph Lauren released Polo's famous short sleeve mesh shirt with the Polo logo in 1972.

The impact of Polo's book on cartography was delayed: the first map in which some names mentioned by Polo appear was in the Catalan Atlas of Charles V ( 1375 ), which included thirty names in China and a number of other Asian toponyms.

An introduction to Marco Polo is Leonard Olschki, Marco Polo's Asia: An Introduction to His " Description of the World " Called ' Il Milione, translated by John A. Scott ( Berkeley: University of California ) 1960 ; it had its origins in the celebrations of the seven hundredth anniversary of Marco Polo's birth.

In the 1950s, Gilbert joined the United States Army's Seventh Army Special Services in Germany, and was cast as the lead in Xanadu: The Marco Polo Musical, an original musical comedy inspired in part by the Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem Kubla Khan, which chronicled Marco Polo's trip to China.

** Marco Polo's father, Niccolo Polo

** Marco Polo's uncle, Matteo Polo

On St. Laurence's Day in 1500, Portuguese explorer Diogo Dias landed on the island and christened it São Lourenço, but Polo's name was preferred and popularized on Renaissance maps.

Originally, Catai was the name applied by Central and Western Asians and Europeans to northern China ; it obtained wide currency in Europe after the publication of Marco Polo's book ( he referred to southern China as Manji ).