The trade names Persian rugs by where they were woven, and each name carries a bundle of expectations: which knot, roughly what density, which palette, which drawing conventions. Learning six or seven of these covers most of what you will actually encounter.
One caution before the list. A region name on a label is a claim, not a fact, and it is the single most commonly overstated thing in the trade. Establishing it independently is covered in identification.
City and workshop weaving
- Knot
- Usually asymmetrical (Persian/senneh)
- Density
- 150–500+ KPSI
- Drawing
- Curvilinear, symmetrical, cartoon-woven
- Foundation
- Cotton, sometimes silk
Tabriz is the most variable name in Persian weaving, because Tabriz has produced at every grade for a century and a half. Expect a cotton foundation, a medallion or all-over design, and anything from 150 to 500 knots per square inch. Tabriz uniquely uses a hooked knife with a small hook, which allows very fine work. Density here is quoted in raj — knots per 7cm — and 50 raj is decent, 70 raj is fine.
Kashan is more consistent. Dense, soft wool, a strong central medallion, and a signature deep madder red ground with indigo blue. Kashan drawing is formal and quite tight. If a rug looks like the popular idea of a Persian carpet, it is probably drawing on Kashan conventions. Covered in more detail in Kashan rugs.
Isfahan sits at the top of current production: very fine knotting, often on a silk foundation, ivory grounds, and a restrained palette. Isfahan rugs are frequently signed by the master weaver, and those signatures materially affect price.
Nain is recognisable at a glance — ivory and light blue, fine, with silk outlining the design elements. It is a twentieth-century tradition, not an old one, which does not stop it being excellent.
Qum is almost entirely a silk tradition and a modern one, dating from the 1930s. Very fine, very varied in design, and the type most often faked with mercerised cotton sold as silk.
Village weaving
Between the workshops and the tribes sits village production: settled weavers working to regional convention rather than a cartoon, usually on a cotton foundation.
Heriz is the best-known. Bold, large-scale geometric medallions in madder red and indigo, coarse by city standards, and famously hard-wearing thanks to the wool from the region around Mount Sabalan. Heriz rugs in room sizes are one of the few genuinely practical antique buys.
Bijar is called the iron rug of Persia for good reason — an extremely heavy, densely packed construction with the weft beaten down hard, sometimes wet. A Bijar resists compression and lasts, but it does not like being rolled tightly.
Sarouk and Malayer round out the group, with Sarouk in particular having a complicated commercial history: many early-twentieth-century American-market Sarouks were chemically stripped and repainted after weaving to suit fashion, which is a real condition consideration when buying one now.
Tribal weaving
- Knot
- Both symmetrical and asymmetrical by group
- Density
- 40–150 KPSI typically
- Drawing
- Geometric, memory-woven, proportion drifts
- Foundation
- Frequently wool, sometimes goat hair
Qashqai weaving from the Fars region is the tribal tradition most collectors start with: saturated natural dyes, a wool foundation, and a lively, slightly irregular drawing. More in Qashqai rugs.
Bakhtiari rugs use a distinctive garden-panel layout — a grid of compartments, each with its own motif — and are usually more robust and more decorative than fine.
Baluch weaving is dark, small-format and often prayer-rug shaped, in aubergine, deep blue and camel. Undervalued for a long time and still comparatively affordable.
Afshar sits between tribal and village, from the Kerman region, typically small, geometric, and finely woven for a tribal rug.
Reading the differences
Two rugs of the same size and similar appearance can differ threefold in price on the strength of these distinctions, which is why the vocabulary matters. The practical sequence is: establish the construction first, then the region, then the age, then condition — in that order, because each answer narrows the next.
That sequence is the structure of the buying guide, and the underlying value factors are set out separately.
3 guides in this section
- Kashan Rugs — The most recognisable Persian city weave — dense wool, a formal central medallion, madder red and indigo — and how to tell a good Kashan from a commercial one.
- Qashqai Rugs — The tribal weaving of the Fars confederacy — wool foundations, saturated natural dyes and drawing that drifts, judged by standards city rugs never apply.
- Tabriz Rugs — The most variable name in Persian weaving — produced at every grade for 150 years — plus how the raj system works and what it actually tells you.
Common questions
Is a Tabriz better than a Kashan?
Neither is better as a category. Both are city workshop traditions capable of very high quality and both are produced at commercial grades too. A fine Kashan will outperform a coarse Tabriz and vice versa — the region tells you the design language and the likely construction, not the quality.
What is the difference between a city rug and a tribal rug?
City rugs are woven from a cartoon, so they are symmetrical, finely knotted and curvilinear. Tribal rugs are woven from memory, so they are geometric, coarser, and drift in proportion and colour. They are different products with different standards, not better and worse versions of one thing.