Are Turkish Rugs Handmade? What Made in Turkey Means on a Rug

By Storied Rugs7 min read

A rose vintage Isparta rug with a stepped cream medallion, navy corners and an ivory border under a wooden armchair on dark walnut boards

Some Turkish rugs are handmade and many are not. Turkey has knotted rugs by hand for centuries, and it is also one of the largest makers of machine-made carpet in the world, so “made in Turkey” tells you where a rug was made, not how. The rugs we sell from Turkey are all hand-knotted, and you can see what they are in our Turkish collection.

If you are trying to work out whether a particular Turkish rug is handmade, the label is the wrong place to start. It names the country and the fiber, but not the way the rug was made.

Two industries under one country name

The handmade side is very old. The Victoria and Albert Museum holds a knotted wool carpet from Usak in western Anatolia made around 1500. The museum describes Usak as a major center of carpet production, where medallion designs from that period stayed in commercial use for several centuries.^[1] Our ultimate guide to Turkish rugs covers the main names.

The factory side is much younger and much larger. In 2019 the head of a Turkish carpet exporters’ association said Turkey made about two thirds of the world’s machine-made carpet, with most of it woven in the city of Gaziantep.^[2] Turkey’s carpet exporters sell handmade, machine-made and tufted rugs alike.^[2]

So when you see a Turkish rug for sale, it could be a hand-knotted vintage rug, a new hand-knotted rug, a tufted rug or a power-loomed one. All four can honestly be called Turkish.

Living room seen from high above, a cream Isparta rug with a sage and rose floral medallion on dark walnut floorboards in front of a linen sofa and an oak side table — An Isparta, 5 feet 5 inches by 8 feet 9 inches. A workshop rug from southwestern Turkey, knotted by hand about fifty years ago, with a floral medallion on a cream field.

What “made in Turkey” on a label tells you

In the United States, most textile products must carry a label listing the fiber content, the country of origin and the business responsible for the product.^[3] Rugs fall under the same rules.^[3] Nothing on the required label says whether the rug was knotted, tufted or woven on a power loom.

The fiber line can still hint at the answer. Synthetic fibers now make up the vast majority of carpet pile, while wool was once the main carpet fiber.^[4] A rug whose label lists polypropylene, polyester or nylon is almost certainly a factory rug. A label that says wool does not settle it, though, because wool can be woven by machine too.

How to tell if a Turkish rug is handmade

To tell if a Turkish rug is handmade, look at the rug itself: the back, the fringe and the sides. On a hand-knotted rug the pattern shows clearly on the back, knot by knot. The fringe is the ends of the warp threads that run the whole length of the rug, not a strip sewn on afterward.^[5] A tufted rug usually hides its back under a glued cloth.^[4] We go through those checks one by one in how to tell if a rug is hand-knotted, and they work the same way on a Turkish rug as on a Persian one.

How a hand-knotted Turkish rug is built

Turkish weavers usually tied the symmetric knot, which wraps around two warp threads. The V&A notes that this knot suits straight, angular lines, and that the weavers of its early Usak carpet struggled with a rounded medallion.^[1] If you want the knot explained side by side with the Persian one, read Persian and Turkish rugs: how to tell them apart.

Because every tuft is tied into the foundation, a hand-knotted rug can be washed and repaired for decades. A tufted rug held together with glue usually cannot, and why hand-knotted rugs outlast machine-made ones explains the difference.

Entry hall seen from a high corner, an Anatolian rug with a stepped cream medallion on a muted pink field, navy corners and a pale gold border on oak boards, a wooden bench and coat pegs beside it — An Anatolian, 4 feet 4 inches by 8 feet 1 inch. A village rug with a stepped medallion on a muted pink field and navy corners, drawn in the straight lines the symmetric knot handles best.

What our Turkish rugs are

Every Turkish rug we sell is hand-knotted wool pile on a cotton foundation, about fifty years old, from the 1970s. Each one is washed and restored before we photograph it. They come under three names.

Isparta. Most of our Turkish rugs are workshop rugs from Isparta in southwestern Turkey, woven to a drawn plan in pale, soft colors. The Isparta guide covers them, and the Isparta rugs are all in one place.
Manisa. Workshop rugs from inland of Izmir, the most uniform of the three, usually with a medallion on an open field. See the Manisa guide and the Manisa rugs.
Anatolian. A small group of village rugs whose exact village is not known, with stepped, geometric drawing. The Anatolian guide explains the name, and the rugs are in the Anatolian collection.

Most of them are living room and bedroom sizes, and most cost between about $300 and $600. We do not sell new Turkish rugs, machine-made rugs or tufted rugs of any kind.

Bedroom seen from high above, a dusty rose Manisa rug with a slate blue medallion and a denim blue border on wide pine boards at the foot of a bed with white linen — A Manisa, 5 feet 10 inches by 9 feet 9 inches. A slate blue medallion sits on an open dusty rose field inside a denim border, the layout most Manisa rugs follow.

How much should a handmade Turkish rug cost?

There is no single price for a handmade Turkish rug. It costs what its size, knotting, fiber, age and condition add up to, and size moves the price most. Handmade rugs cost more than machine-made ones because every knot is tied by hand, and a 9 by 12 rug can hold up to 1.5 million of them.^[6] Among vintage rugs, Turkish ones usually cost less than Persian rugs of the same size, mostly because more of them survive. Ours mostly cost about $300 to $600, and what determines the cost of a rug gives price ranges by size.

Handmade is not the same as old

Hand-knotting in Turkey did not stop in the 1970s, and handmade rugs are still made and exported, so a handmade Turkish rug can also be new.^[2] Age is a separate question from construction, and sellers estimate it rather than prove it. Our authenticity page sets out what we can tell you about a rug and what nobody can know for certain.

Pale color is not proof of age either, because some rugs are bleached or chemically washed to look old. Overdyed vs naturally faded rugs shows how to tell a washed rug from one that faded on its own.

What to ask before you buy a Turkish rug

Ask the seller how the rug was made, what the pile is made of and roughly when it was made. A seller who knows the answers will give them without hedging. If you are buying on a trip rather than online, buying a rug in Turkey covers bargaining, shipping and customs.

When you are ready to look at real ones, start with the Turkish rugs and look closely at the photographs on any listing.