Rugs woven in the Caucasus, the mountain region between the Black and Caspian seas, whose southern part lies in modern Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan; Kazak rugs were first made there in the 1800s. The label is used for the region's geometric, tribal-looking weaving, best known from Kazak rugs with large medallions, rosettes and tribal symbols, and it often describes designs that weavers elsewhere echo, as in some Quchan, Mehraban and Bijar rugs. Today's Kazak rugs from Pakistan revive this tradition.
Tribal rugs woven by Kurdish weavers around Quchan, north of Mashhad in northeastern Iran, a border region where the Safavid rulers settled Kurdish tribes to help guard the frontier. A wool or goat-hair foundation carries a wool pile at about 120 knots per square inch (roughly 186,000 per square meter), high for tribal work. Geometric medallion or all-over designs in strong red, blue or ivory fields resemble Caucasian rugs and, above all, Anatolian ones, since the weavers' ancestors came from Anatolia. Compact looms keep sizes small to medium, seldom wider than 6 ft (1.8 m) or longer than 13 ft (4 m).