We owe the first descriptions of Xanadu and Khanbalik (Beijing) to Marco Polo of Venice, whose book was published in 1299, co-written by Rusticello of Pisa. The book was quickly translated into many languages; the oldest manuscript we have is in Old French. The copies were not controlled by a publisher, but were hand-copied and later printed at will. It first came into English in 1503, but by then it was very well-known (if not always believed) in Italian and French, and it had begun to influence map-making.
Marco was one of the Europeans living at the court of Kublai Khan. He told his story while in POW captivity in Genoa, after taking part in a Venice vs. Genoa battle shortly after he got back to Europe. In 1260, his father and uncle had set off on the Silk Road and eventually came to the Great Khan’s court in China. They were gone for ten years, while Marco grew from 6 to 16. In 1271, Marco went with them. He served Kublai Khan in various official posts while his father and uncle traded and, at times, helped build siege engines.
After 17 years, the Polos and the Khan were both growing old, so they wanted to return to Italy with their wealth before the Khan’s death might throw the Silk Road into anarchy. The Khan reluctantly gave them leave to go as escorts for the princess Kököjin. They traveled by ship, going through the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean. Kublai Khan did die shortly, and their portion of travel through Iran was dangerous. Their protection along the way came from a tablet of gold that stated a death penalty for anyone who did not honor the Khan’s name. This golden ticket was a foot long, and it was still listed among Marco’s possessions when he died in 1324.
There are some questions about Marco’s authenticity, partly because his name is not mentioned in Yuan Dynasty records. Also, his account of China tells less of China than it might; he didn’t talk about the Great Wall or tell much about native Chinese customs. On the other hand, the Yuan Dynasty was not a time when the Wall was important, since the Mongols were some of the invaders it was meant to keep out. Marco’s family apparently learned languages that were spoken along the Silk Road, and perhaps Mongolian, but not Chinese. They mixed with the ruling class, not the farmers, and his reports about Mongolian customs seem accurate.
Marco loved the Chinese city of Hangzhou, which was filled with canals like Venice. He was very impressed with paper currency and the Yuan postal system. He described a system of first, second and third-class mail; first-class mail was the Khan’s own urgent business, carried by relays of riders without stopping. Marco was also very impressed with Kublai’s summer palace, a giant tent made of bamboo and cords, which had a hall that seated thousands. That’s what he was describing when he wrote about Xangdu, or Xanadu, as it appeared in English.
Marco saw several natural resources for the first time, too. Europe had coal, but there was no mining until the 15th century. They just found lumps of “sea coal,” a burnable rock, here and there. But China was mining coal for an additional fuel source, and Marco was amazed to see black rocks that burned like wood. He also reported seeing an asbestos-making industry among the Uyghurs; to his surprise, asbestos fabric was cleaned by throwing it into a fire!
Marco’s book’s greatest value to Europe was its geography. On the journey toward Cathay, his family party had chosen to go the long haul overland, across Afghanistan and eventually across the G0bi Desert. He reported on these places with realistic detail, effectively adding them to European maps. As a Yuan official, he traveled to Karakorum and saw parts of Siberia. These places had been so unknown to Europe that a century before, scholars had literally not known where the Mongols might be coming from, since their maps showed China but nothing beyond it.
Read more here
http://www.silk-road.com/artl/marcopolo.shtml