Bhadohi Mirzapur Hand Knotted Carpet Weaving Uttar Pradesh

Bhadohi district in Uttar Pradesh is the epicentre of India's hand-knotted carpet industry — accounting for over 60% of India's carpet exports — with hundreds of thousands of weavers in Bhadohi, Mirzapur, and Varanasi producing Persian, Indo-Persian, Tibetan, and contemporary design carpets on vertical frame looms using New Zealand wool, Indian wool, and silk pile on cotton warp foundations. The weaving tradition was established in Mughal times when Persian master weavers settled in the Bhadohi-Agra corridor, and the cluster now exports to Germany, the USA, and Australia through Bhadohi's dedicated Carpet City export hub. A single 9x12 foot Persian design carpet at 100 knots per square inch takes a team of two weavers three months to complete. Bhadohi's carpet weaving community — predominantly from the Ansari Muslim and Pasi weaving castes — operates in a cottage industry structure where urban exporters provide loom equipment, design cartoons, and yarn on loan and collect finished carpets for quality grading and export. The Carpet Export Promotion Council of India maintains offices in Bhadohi for trade certification.