If you've ever bought a handmade wool rug, there's a good chance it can trace its roots back to Bhadohi — a city in Uttar Pradesh, India, that's home to the largest hand-knotted carpet-weaving industry hub in South Asia.
Bhadohi sits between two of India's great heritage cities: about 45km west of Varanasi and 82km east of Prayagraj. That geography put it at a crossroads long before it became a carpet town, and today the wider Bhadohi–Mirzapur belt is often called the "Carpet City of India" — the industry here employs generations of the same artisan families, working from villages and workshops across the region. Carpets from Bhadohi carry a Geographical Indication (GI) tag, a formal recognition that ties the craft to this specific place, the way Champagne is tied to its region in France.
The region's carpet-weaving tradition traces back to the Mughal era, when Persian-style weaving techniques were introduced to northern India and took root in local workshops. What followed was centuries of refinement — techniques passed from one generation of weavers to the next, long before "handmade" was a marketing term rather than simply how things were made.
That's the tradition House of Souravi works within. Every rug we make is hand-tufted or hand-knotted by artisans in Bhadohi, using 100% New Zealand wool — contemporary designs, made by hand, in the same region that's been doing this longer than almost anywhere else in the world. See exactly how it's made, or read more about our story and the artisans behind every piece.