The Azerbaijan region in the Caucasus just north of Iran was already an important rug-producing region by the seventeenth century, if not earlier, and many Caucasian types of rug- Kuba, Shirvan, etc., come from this region. The term Azerbaijan, however, is applied specifically to embroideries related to classical Persian textiles and rugs that were produced somewhere in this region, although the specific areas of production remain uncertain. Azerbaijan embroideries are important not only for their skill and beauty, but also because they provided the models or inspirations for many Caucasian rugs of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.