Azerbaijan National Carpet Museum
Photo: [1] — CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The Azerbaijan National Carpet Museum in Baku showcases the world’s largest collection of Azerbaijani carpets, reflecting the nation’s rich cultural heritage.
Planning your visit
The Azerbaijan National Carpet Museum is shaped like a rolled carpet — the building on Baku's seafront boulevard curls at one end, which is either delightful or heavy-handed depending on taste, and it houses the largest collection of Azerbaijani carpets in the world.
Carpet weaving here is UNESCO-listed intangible heritage, and the museum's value lies in explaining what distinguishes the regional schools: Guba, Baku, Shirvan, Ganja, Gazakh, Karabakh and Tabriz, each with its own knot density, palette, motifs and structural conventions. Once the differences are pointed out they become visible, and a carpet stops being decoration and becomes a document of where and when it was made.
Alongside the carpets sit applied arts — metalwork, ceramics, jewellery, costume — and weavers work on site.
Azerbaijani carpets appear in European paintings from the Renaissance onward, which the museum notes with some pride.
Bookable options include guided museum tours. Current availability is listed below.
Before you book
Where is Azerbaijan National Carpet Museum?
Azerbaijan National Carpet Museum is in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Do I need to book Azerbaijan National Carpet Museum in advance?
Tickets can be bought on the door at quiet times, but booking ahead fixes the date and avoids the queue at busy ones. Live availability is shown on this page.
