Best Area Rugs

The phrase “Oriental Rug” is commonly used as a generic label for nearly any variety of patterned carpeting. There are many stores that sell a frequently changing mix of hand-made and machine-made rugs, which they often group together and advertise as "Oriental rugs". Genuine Oriental rugs are a piled or flat woven fabric hand-knotted in one of the traditional weaving areas of the Middle or Far East. Genuine "Oriental rugs" come from Afghanistan, China, India, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan, Tibet, Turkey, some of the southern territories of the old Soviet Union (like Azerbaijan or Armenia), Balkan countries like Romania and Albania, and some North African countries like Morocco and Egypt.

To qualify, an Oriental rug has to be handmade and constructed of natural fibers such as wool, cotton or silk. The value of an Oriental rug depends mostly on the quality of workmanship, the type of material and the rug's originality. The best way to judge the quality of workmanship in an Oriental rug is to count the number of knots per square inch. Turn the rug face down, and count the number of knots in an inch along a row going from side to side and a row going up and down and multiply the two numbers to determine the number of knots per square inch. In general, a rug with 400 knots per square inch would be considered of higher quality than one with 100 knots per square inch. Another way to judge Oriental rugs is by weight. Higher-quality rugs tend to weigh more than lesser quality rugs because the material is more dense.