Lijiang’s position between mountain passes gave it a role beyond the scale of a single market street. UNESCO describes the old town as an important distribution centre for trade among Sichuan, Yunnan and Tibet from the twelfth century onward. The same account places it where the southern Silk Road connected with the Tea and Horse Roads. These are historical networks, not a single marked road running unchanged through every settlement.
The town plan gives this regional role a local address. UNESCO describes Dayan as a commercial centre, while the nomination record identifies Sifangjie as a traditional trading centre in northwestern Yunnan. Streets radiating from a central market and channels crossing through the town help explain how movement and exchange were organized. They do not, by themselves, identify the goods, merchants or transactions that passed through on a particular date.