Chinese Government has issued ＜Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road ＞in 2015 and “The Belt and Road Initiative” has therefore become a global focus. This will become a new perspective for the study of global cities-regional development，rather than the conventional research focused key cities and flows. Key cities and trading cities along the Belt and Road can be termed as “Silk road cities” in the study. The study，based on the development of economic geography，has explored concepts，characteristics，theoretical and practical meanings of silk road cities，analyzed contribution of silk road cities to regional development and problems facing the cities. Silk road cities are the revision and complementation of world city network-as new dynamics for developing regions and world city network. Silk road cities will provide regional framework，market and governance for “The Belt and Road Initiative”. The development of silk road cities largely depends on their scale，function，infrastructure and communication and facing challenges such as over urbanization，overwhelming metropolis and insufficient infrastructure. Based on theoretical reasoning，the study has detailed case studies of silk road cities of Central Asia，South Asia，South-east Asia and West Asia，had conclusions on development models of the cities and the roles and functions of Chinese cities to the development of these silk road cities.