The rug belt runs from the Aegean coast of Türkiye through the Caucasus and Iran to Central Asia. Every town and tribe along it has its own knots, colors and motifs. Here are sixteen to know.
Each illustration is drawn by Atlasana from the traditional designs. Real pieces vary from maker to maker, and every region has far more styles than we can show here.
Silk rugs from a town on the Sea of Marmara, where an imperial workshop was set up in the 1840s to furnish the Ottoman palaces. Hereke rugs are known for very fine knotting, delicate floral designs and a soft sheen.
One of the great carpet centers of the Ottoman era. Star and medallion Uşak carpets of the 1500s were traded to Europe and appear in Renaissance paintings, and the town still weaves large rugs today.
Village rugs from southwest Türkiye, often prayer rugs with a pointed niche, woven in warm shades of rust, apricot and gold.
Flatwoven kilims with bold hooked diamonds and stepped bands. Konya is also home to some of the oldest known Turkish carpets, Seljuk-era pieces found in the city's Alaeddin Mosque.
Village rugs from the borderlands of today's Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia. Kazak rugs have large, bold geometric medallions, glossy long wool and bright reds, blues and greens.
Finely knotted rugs from the northeast Caucasus, with dark fields packed with small geometric motifs and crisp, often white-ground borders.
One of the oldest and largest weaving centers in Iran, around a vast historic bazaar. Tabriz workshops weave almost every style, from classical medallions to pictorial rugs, usually with the symmetric, or Turkish, knot.
Village rugs from the hills east of Tabriz, with large angular medallions in rust, navy and ivory. They are prized for their durability and thick, hard-wearing wool.
Very fine, thin rugs and kilims, often covered in a small repeating boteh, the teardrop shape known in the West as paisley. The asymmetric Persian knot is often called the Senneh knot, though Senneh weavers mostly use the symmetric one.
A city with a long history of silk and fine carpet weaving. Kashan rugs are known for classical designs around a central medallion, deep reds and navy, and dense, velvety wool.
Capital of Safavid Persia under Shah Abbas, when the court workshops flourished. Isfahan still weaves some of Iran's finest rugs, with balanced floral medallions in ivory, blue and rose, often on a silk foundation.
The Qashqai, a nomadic Turkic-speaking people, weave lively tribal rugs and kilims. Gabbeh are thick, soft rugs with long pile, open fields of color and a few simple figures like animals and trees.
City rugs known for flowing floral designs, wide borders and a broad range of soft colors. Kerman weavers became famous for elaborate garden and pictorial designs.
Deep red rugs with rows of gul, the octagonal emblems that set one tribe's weaving apart from another's. In the trade they are often sold as Bukhara rugs, after the market city where many were once traded.
Not a rug but an embroidered hanging. Suzani are stitched in silk on cotton with large sun and moon disks and flowering vines, and were traditionally made for a bride's dowry.
Silk ikat, known as khan atlas, with blurred, flame-like patterns made by dyeing the threads before weaving. Margilan sits on the old Silk Road and still has working silk mills.
Batik and woven cloth of Indonesia
Court batik from Yogyakarta and Solo, coastal batik from Cirebon and Pekalongan, and the ikat, songket and ulos of the outer islands.
Explore 15 textiles
Silks and weaves of South Asia
Banarasi brocade, Kanchipuram and Mysore silk, Patola double ikat, golden Muga from Assam, Kashmir pashmina and Dhaka Jamdani.
Explore 15 silks and weaves
Tell us which side you're on and what you're looking for. A real person reads every email and replies within one business day.