TEHRAN, Iran — Iran's capital city hosted the world’s largest and most prestigious handmade carpet exhibition Aug. 23-29. Hamid Kargar, the head of Iran National Carpet Center, told Al-Monitor, “About 730 companies from across Iran and dozens of carpet traders from across the globe participated in the 26th Iran Handmade Carpet Exhibition.” He added, “Among them were more than 90 international businessmen, including 14 Americans and 14 Japanese, who came to Iran for the first time.”

The world-renowned Persian carpet, which is widely believed to have been around for more than 2,500 years, is deeply rooted in the Iranian national identity. There is probably no home in the country where at least one rug isn’t part of either the flooring or decoration.

As the world’s largest producer and exporter of handwoven carpets, Iran produces three quarters of total global output. According to Kargar, “About 3 million square meters of carpets are woven in the country every year, 65% of which is exported to about 80 countries across the globe.”

A number of antique Persian carpets can be seen in such renowned museums as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York or the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, which houses the oldest surviving rug (likely of Persian origin and misleadingly called the Pazyryk Carpet) from around 500 B.C. In the neighboring United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Zayed Mosque holds the world’s largest handwoven carpet at 60,546 square feet, woven by Iranian weavers from Neishabour in Khorasan Razavi Province.