How knotted carpets differ from flatwoven kilims, what the main regional styles look like, how to judge a piece — and how to buy one without regretting it.
Last reviewed on 27 September 2026.
Weaving is one of Anatolia's oldest crafts. Carpets and flatweaves were made by nomadic and village households for their own tents and homes, as dowry pieces, and in towns and workshops for sale and export. Some of the oldest surviving pile carpets in the world are Anatolian: the 13th-century Seljuk carpets found in Konya's Alâeddin Mosque are now in Istanbul's Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts. Today a rug is among the most common big-ticket purchases visitors make in Türkiye — and one of the easiest to get wrong. This page explains what you are looking at and how to buy sensibly.
Short lengths of yarn are knotted around pairs of warp threads, row by row, and trimmed to form a raised pile. Thicker, warmer and slower to make; the density of knots governs how fine the design can be.
No pile: coloured weft threads are woven back and forth through the warps to build up the pattern, usually in bold geometric shapes. Lighter, reversible in many cases, quicker to weave and generally cheaper than a pile carpet of the same size.
Anatolian carpets are traditionally tied with the Turkish or Gördes knot — a symmetric, "double" knot in which the yarn wraps around both warp threads and both ends emerge between them. Persian workshops more often used the asymmetric Senneh knot, which wraps one warp and passes loosely under the other. The Turkish knot is sturdy and suits bold designs; the name comes from Gördes, a weaving town in Manisa province.
Kilims are woven mainly in the slit-tapestry technique: where two colours meet vertically, each weft turns back around its own warp, leaving a small slit. That is why kilim designs favour stepped diagonals and diamonds, and why tiny gaps between colour areas are a sign of the technique rather than a defect. Related flatweaves include the cicim (with patterns added on a plain ground) and sumak (a wrapped weave with a slightly raised, herringbone surface).
Traditional names refer to places and weaving groups, but they are also used loosely as style labels for pieces woven elsewhere. Treat a regional name as a description of the design, not a guarantee of where a rug was made.
| Style | Where | What it looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Hereke | Hereke, on the Gulf of Ä°zmit | Very fine silk or silk-and-wool carpets with curving floral and medallion designs, from an imperial workshop founded in the 19th century to supply Ottoman palaces. The name is widely used for fine silk rugs made elsewhere; genuine Hereke pieces are expensive. |
| UÅŸak | UÅŸak, inner Aegean | Historically famous for large 16th-century "medallion" and "star" UÅŸak carpets exported to Europe; related designs appear in Renaissance paintings and are known as "Lotto" and "Holbein" carpets. Modern UÅŸak production often has softer colours. |
| Milas | Milas, near Bodrum | Aegean village rugs, often prayer rugs with a narrow niche, in warm apricot, gold and rose tones. |
| Konya | Konya and its villages | Heir to the Seljuk tradition; strong reds and yellows, bold geometric motifs, and well-known kilims from the Konya plain and districts such as Obruk. |
| Kars | Northeast Anatolia | Thick wool carpets and kilims with large geometric figures, closely related to Caucasian weaving across the border. |
| Yağcıbedir | Sındırgı area of Balıkesir | Woven by a Yörük (Turkmen) group; dark blue and deep red grounds with white and small geometric motifs, dense and hard-wearing. |
Other well-known names include Bergama, Ladik, Kayseri (often in silk or artificial silk) and Döşemealtı near Antalya. In the 1980s the DOBAG project, launched in villages near Ayvacık and in the Yuntdağ area, revived natural dyeing among weaving cooperatives, and similar efforts elsewhere mean new pieces made with traditional methods are available again.
Traditional dyes came from plants and insects: madder root (kök boya) for reds, indigo for blues, weld and other plants for yellows, walnut husks for browns, and combinations for greens and purples. Synthetic dyes spread into Anatolian weaving from the late 19th century. They are not bad in themselves — modern chrome dyes are stable and colourfast — but early synthetic colours often faded or ran, and harsh, flat colours can look crude.
There is no single number that tells you what a rug is worth, but a few checks separate a sound handmade piece from a poor one.
The rug trade has a reputation for high-pressure selling, and it is partly deserved. Plenty of dealers are honest and knowledgeable, but the tourist trade also includes commission arrangements and theatrical sales techniques. A few principles help:
Kilims fold small and many carpets can be tightly rolled or folded into a bag for checked luggage; dealers commonly pack them this way. Shipping is also routine, but it is where problems happen most often — the wrong rug, or no rug, arriving weeks later. If you ship:
Türkiye's cultural heritage law restricts the export of objects classed as cultural property, and genuinely old carpets and kilims can fall into this category. Selling and exporting such pieces without permission is illegal, and customs officers do check. In practice, a dealer selling an old or antique rug should supply a document from the relevant museum directorate confirming that the piece is not protected cultural property and may be exported. Keep it with the invoice, along with the receipt, when you leave the country.
If a seller calls a piece antique but cannot or will not provide the export paperwork, either the piece is not really old or you risk having it confiscated. New and recent rugs do not need this document, but an invoice helps avoid questions at customs. Rules and procedures can change, so ask the dealer and, if in doubt, check with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism or customs before buying anything described as old.
A Turkish carpet (halı) has a raised pile made by tying knots of yarn around the warp threads. A kilim is a flatweave with no pile, in which coloured weft threads are woven through the warps to form the pattern. Kilims are lighter, often reversible and generally cheaper.
The Turkish or Gördes knot is a symmetric knot in which the yarn wraps around two adjacent warp threads and both ends come up between them. It is the traditional knot of Anatolian carpets and differs from the asymmetric Persian (Senneh) knot.
Turn it over: a hand-knotted rug shows the design clearly on the back with small irregularities, and the fringe is formed by the warp threads rather than sewn on. A perfectly regular back, a glued backing or a sewn-on fringe points to a machine-made or tufted rug.
Only with the right paperwork. Old carpets can count as protected cultural property, so a dealer should supply a document from the museum directorate confirming the piece may be exported. Without it, the carpet may be confiscated at customs.
Yes, negotiation is normal in carpet shops. Decide your budget first, compare several shops, and only make an offer you would honour. There is no standard discount, and accepting tea or viewing rugs creates no obligation to buy.
Shipping is routine, but protect yourself: photograph and label the rug, get a written receipt with a tracking number and insurance details, and pay by credit card. Many kilims and carpets can also be folded into checked luggage instead.