An illustration of an antique-style map of the world spread on a wooden table, with small pots, jars and bowls standing on the pottery regions of North America, Europe and Asia and small printed labels pinned beside them

Electives · A field guide

Pottery epicenters and meccas around the world.

Every one of these places is a different answer to the same question: what can you do with dirt and fire? Jingdezhen answered with porcelain so fine you can read through it. Bizen answered by refusing glaze altogether and letting the kiln paint the pot. Faenza answered in tin white and painted color, Stoke with a factory, Mata Ortiz with a coil and a paintbrush. A place becomes a pottery mecca when clay is woven into the identity of the town, when generations of makers built a recognizable tradition there, and when the local clay culture still matters today. Thirty-one of them are below.

This page covers the twenty-one heavyweight meccas grouped by region, Japan on its own map with the Six Ancient Kilns, ten specialty pilgrimage destinations, the ten ceramic languages most of the list is written in, and six documentaries. The North American places get a card each here and a page of their own.

This is the short version: the ten places that give you a working mental map of world ceramics, and one film. All thirty-one, Japan’s map, the languages and the other five films are in the comprehensive version.

31Places on this page, twenty-one heavyweights and ten specialists
6Ancient kilns in Japan alone, each still firing after more than eight hundred years
x6Documentaries, none made by us or for us
10Places that give you a working map of most of the world’s pottery
Jump to a section
Why this page has words and film If you only learn ten How to read this guide East Asia: nine heavyweights Japan deserves its own map Europe, the Mediterranean and North Africa: eight heavyweights The Americas: four heavyweights Ten specialty pilgrimage destinations The ten ceramic languages Six documentaries The one film to watch How it connects to The Clay Hole Questions people actually ask Related lessons

All thirty-one places, Japan’s own map, the ten languages, and six documentaries.

Read it, then watch it

Why this is written down and filmed, both.

A field guide is a list, and a list of thirty-one places is exactly the kind of thing that reads well and films badly. But a place is not a paragraph. The sound of a kiln being stoked at three in the morning, the scale of a porcelain workshop, the way a potter’s hands move: those are the reasons the places matter, and you can only get them from film. So this page carries the map and six documentaries carry the feel.

Read the ten ceramic languages first, so the names mean something. Then watch a film about one of the places and the rest start to make sense by contrast. Then read the list region by region, and the world of ceramics, which looks enormous from outside, will turn out to be about a dozen ideas that traveled.

Use both, in this order

The ten ceramic languages first. Then the Jingdezhen film. Then the full list, one region at a time.

If you only learn ten

The fastest possible mental map of the world’s pottery.

Ten places, and between them they cover most of the ideas in ceramics. Learn what each one is known for and most of the world's traditions start to look like variations on one of them.

  1. 1Jingdezhen, ChinaPorcelain. Probably the closest thing pottery has to an undisputed world capital, and still full of potters.
  2. 2Mashiko, JapanStudio and folk pottery. Where the mingei movement got its hands dirty.
  3. 3Bizen, JapanWood firing and unglazed stoneware. The kiln does the decorating.
  4. 4Mino, JapanShino, Oribe and the tea-ware glaze traditions.
  5. 5Arita, JapanJapanese porcelain, and the export ware that reached Europe as Imari.
  6. 6Longquan, ChinaCeladon. Thick, jade-green, controlled reduction.
  7. 7Yixing, ChinaHandmade teapots and zisha clay.
  8. 8Faenza, ItalyMaiolica. The word faience comes from this town’s name.
  9. 9Iznik, TurkeyOttoman ceramics and tile. Cobalt, turquoise, and the raised red.
  10. 10Stoke-on-Trent, EnglandIndustrial pottery and tableware. The Potteries, literally.

Before the list

What counts as a mecca, and what this guide is not.

What countsA place where ceramics are woven into the identity of the town or region, where generations of makers developed a recognizable tradition, and where the local clay culture still matters today. A famous factory in a town that does not care about pots does not qualify.
A world with a few huge concentrationsJapan and China are especially dense. Either country could support an entire pottery pilgrimage on its own, with radically different styles a few hours apart. That is why Japan gets its own map below.
A field guide, not a rankingThe list combines historical importance, technical influence, living pottery culture, recognizability and the distinctiveness of the specialty. It is selective on purpose. Your favorite town not being here is not a verdict on it.

The heavyweights, part one

East Asia. Nine places where much of ceramics was invented.

China invented porcelain and celadon. Korea sent Japan potters, many of them taken there after the invasions of the 1590s. Japan turned all of it into dozens of traditions a few hours apart.

ChinaJingdezhenPorcelain, and especially blue-and-white porcelain. Imperial kilns, extraordinarily refined throwing and trimming, painted decoration, and centuries of production at a scale that is hard to picture until you see it. The word kaolin comes from a hill nearby. This is probably the closest thing pottery has to an undisputed world capital, and it is still full of potters.What it teaches: porcelain, thinness, and the painted surface
ChinaLongquanCeladon. Thick, jade-like green glazes, subtle forms, crackle, and highly controlled reduction firing that peaked in the Song dynasty, declined in the centuries after, and was revived in the 1950s. When a potter here reaches for a celadon on our wall, they are reaching for the glaze Longquan made famous.What it teaches: glaze depth, reduction, and restraint
ChinaYixingZisha teapots. Unglazed purple-sand clay, hand-built tea vessels, and an obsessive culture around clay composition, form and tea performance. The pots are seasoned by the tea itself. Yixing is essentially the world capital of the handmade teapot.What it teaches: hand building, unglazed surfaces, and the object that improves with use
JapanMashikoMingei folk pottery. Rustic stoneware, thick forms, earthy glazes, functional ware, and unapologetically handmade surfaces. Shoji Hamada settled here in 1924, after three years working beside Bernard Leach in England, and helped make Mashiko one of the great centers of the Japanese folk-craft movement.What it teaches: the beauty of the everyday pot
JapanBizen and ImbeUnglazed wood-fired pottery. Long firings, red pine, ash deposits, flame markings, flashing, and surfaces created almost entirely by clay, fire and where the pot sat in the kiln. Straw wrapped round a pot leaves red lines; a pot in the ash path gets a sesame-seed crust. One of Japan’s Six Ancient Kilns.What it teaches: the kiln as the decorator
JapanArita and ImariJapanese porcelain. Brilliant white, cobalt decoration, elaborate overglaze enamels, and the export porcelain that shipped from the port of Imari and reached European palaces. Arita is widely regarded as the birthplace of Japanese porcelain, in the early 1600s, with Korean potters at the wheel.What it teaches: porcelain with color on top
JapanMino, Tajimi and TokiShino, Oribe, Kiseto and Seto-guro. Tea-ceremony pottery heaven, from the late 1500s onward. Shino is thick milky white with rich fire effects; Oribe is copper green, bold decoration and deliberately eccentric forms. Several of the glaze names potters trade in, shino and oribe among them, came from here.What it teaches: glaze as a language, and the deliberately imperfect form
JapanSetoGlazed stoneware and porcelain. More than a thousand years of production and a huge range of glaze traditions. Pottery became so synonymous with Seto that setomono is a generic Japanese word for ceramics. Another of the Six Ancient Kilns.What it teaches: range, and the glazed pot in medieval Japan
South KoreaIcheonKorean ceramic traditions and modern studio pottery. Celadon, buncheong, white porcelain and contemporary ceramics, an hour from Seoul, in one of Korea’s largest and most important craft-ceramics centers. Korea is where much of Japan’s pottery learned its craft.What it teaches: celadon, inlay, and the living tradition

A country of kilns

Japan deserves its own pottery map.

Japan does not have a few famous pottery towns. It has dozens of traditions tied to specific places, many stretching back hundreds or more than a thousand years.

The Six Ancient Kilns

Six places that have been firing pottery continuously since the medieval period, recognized together as Japan Heritage. Two are heavyweights above; all six are here.

KilnKnown for
BizenUnglazed wood firing
SetoGlazed stoneware and porcelain
ShigarakiCoarse clay, natural ash, fire color, and the tanuki figures outside every shop
TokonameRed stoneware, teapots, and large storage vessels
EchizenHigh-fired stoneware
TambaAsh-glazed folk stoneware

Other major Japanese centers

PlaceKnown for
HagiSoft tea ware, feldspathic glazes that craze, and a porous body that stains with use
KaratsuKorean-influenced stoneware and tea ceramics
KutaniHighly colorful overglaze porcelain
KyotoKyo-yaki and Kiyomizu-yaki, and the raku tradition our raku workshops descend from
OkinawaYachimun pottery
HasamiFunctional porcelain
Koishiwara and OntaFolk pottery, slip-decorated with chattered and brushed surfaces

The heavyweights, part two

Europe, the Mediterranean and North Africa. Eight places.

Tin glaze arrived from the Islamic world, porcelain arrived from China, and Europe spent four hundred years trying to copy both before it built factories instead.

ItalyFaenzaMaiolica. Tin-glazed earthenware, brilliantly painted surfaces, and Renaissance ceramics at their most confident. Faenza became so famous for this pottery that the word faience ultimately comes from the city’s name, and its ceramics museum is one of the largest in the world.What it teaches: the painted tin-white surface
SpainManisesMetallic lusterware. Tin-glazed pottery decorated with shimmering copper and silver lusters, often combined with cobalt blue, in a tradition that came through Islamic Spain. Manises, outside Valencia, was one of medieval Europe’s great ceramic centers.What it teaches: luster, and the third firing
TurkeyIznikOttoman tiles and vessels from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries. Brilliant cobalt blue, turquoise, and the famous raised red, on a white quartz body, decorated with tulips, carnations, hyacinths and arabesques. The tiles line mosques in Istanbul to this day.What it teaches: color on tile, and the architectural surface
EnglandStoke-on-TrentIndustrial pottery and tableware. Wedgwood, Spode, Royal Doulton, Moorcroft, transfer printing, bone china, bottle kilns, and the development of mass-produced ceramics across six towns that are literally called The Potteries. Much of the world's factory tableware descends from what was worked out here.What it teaches: repeatability, and the factory
FranceLimogesFine porcelain. Extremely white hard-paste porcelain, elegant tableware and decorative painting, made possible by the discovery of kaolin nearby in 1768, which turned a provincial town into France’s porcelain capital.What it teaches: whiteness, and the value of the right clay
GermanyMeissenEuropean hard-paste porcelain. Technically immaculate, figurines, painted decoration and elite craftsmanship, beginning in 1710 when Meissen became Europe’s first successful producer of true porcelain after a century of trying to crack China’s secret. The crossed swords mark is still on the bottom.What it teaches: the first European porcelain, and the figurine
NetherlandsDelftDelftware. Tin-glazed earthenware painted mostly in blue and white, in open imitation of the Chinese porcelain arriving by ship in the 1600s. Tiles, plates, jars and architectural ceramics are the signatures, and the last of the original factories is still making them.What it teaches: blue and white, and open imitation
MoroccoSafiMoroccan decorated pottery. Wheel-thrown earthenware with bold geometric and floral decoration, often in intense blues, greens and yellows, fired on a hillside of kilns above the Atlantic. Safi remains one of Morocco’s great ceramic centers.What it teaches: the decorated earthenware bowl

The heavyweights, part three

The Americas. Four places, and a page of their own.

These four are on the world list because they belong there. Our North America page gives each of them, and sixteen more, the room they deserve.

MexicoPuebla and TlaxcalaTalavera. Tin-glazed earthenware with elaborate painted decoration, with roots in Spanish maiolica that evolved into something distinctly Mexican, and now protected by a denomination of origin.What it teaches: maiolica, crossed an ocean
MexicoOaxaca and San Bartolo CoyotepecBarro negro. Black pottery burnished before a low reduction firing to a distinctive dark, almost metallic surface, a technique refined in the village of San Bartolo Coyotepec in the 1950s. Oaxaca holds several other distinctive village traditions besides.What it teaches: burnishing, and the unglazed shine
MexicoMata OrtizUltra-refined hand-built pottery inspired by the ancient ceramics of Paquimé. Very thin walls, coil construction, burnishing and extraordinarily intricate geometric painting, typically made without a conventional wheel, in a movement one man started in the 1970s.What it teaches: the coil, the brush, and a revival
United StatesSeagrove, North CarolinaAmerican folk and studio pottery. Salt glazes, alkaline glazes, wood firing, functional stoneware and contemporary studio ceramics in one of America’s most concentrated communities of working potters, around a hundred potteries in one small corner of North Carolina.What it teaches: the American stoneware tradition, still alive

The specialists

Ten more places, each famous for one thing.

Not heavyweights, and not lesser. Each of these owns a single idea so completely that it belongs on the map.

1Gangjin, South KoreaGoryeo celadon, including the inlaid sanggam decoration that is Korea’s own invention.
2Deruta, ItalyHighly decorated Renaissance maiolica and lusterware, still painted by hand in a hill town in Umbria.
3Grottaglie, ItalySouthern Italian earthenware: large storage jars, traditional ware and decorative ceramics from a town with a whole quarter of potters.
4Vallauris, FranceTwentieth-century studio ceramics, forever associated with the years Picasso spent making pots there.
5Talavera de la Reina, SpainThe European side of the Talavera tradition, rich in painted surface decoration, and the town whose name Puebla's pottery took.
6Fez, MoroccoIntricate painted ceramics alongside the extraordinary tradition of zellij mosaic tile, cut by hand from glazed slabs.
7Kosiv, UkraineDistinctive green, yellow and brown painted folk ceramics, on the UNESCO list of intangible heritage.
8Khurja, IndiaColorful glazed earthenware and stoneware from a town with a long production tradition and hundreds of small factories.
9Chulucanas, PeruBurnished resist pottery, with dramatic black-and-tan surfaces made by smoking parts of the pot and protecting the rest.
10Caldas da Rainha, PortugalEccentric sculptural and naturalistic ceramics, and the Bordallo Pinheiro tradition of cabbage plates and lifelike animals.

The big picture

What can you do with dirt and fire? Ten answers.

Most places on this page speak one or two of these. Learn the ten and most of the map becomes readable.

Porcelain

Jingdezhen, Arita, Limoges, Meissen, Hasami. White, translucent, high-fired, and the material that Europe spent centuries trying to copy.

Celadon

Longquan, Gangjin, Icheon. A reduction-fired green that looks like jade and depends on iron, thickness and the kiln.

Wood fire

Bizen, Shigaraki, Seagrove. The kiln as the decorator: ash, flashing, and the pot’s position in the flame.

Folk pottery

Mashiko, Onta, Tamba, Kosiv. Functional ware made in quantity by people who did not call themselves artists, and the movement that gave that work a name.

Maiolica

Faenza, Deruta, Puebla, Talavera de la Reina. Tin-white glaze as a canvas for painted color.

Lusterware

Manises, Deruta. Metallic shimmer from a third, low, reduction firing, learned from the Islamic world.

Tea ware

Mino, Hagi, Karatsu, Kyoto, Yixing. Pots made to be held, for a ceremony that rewards the imperfect and the worn.

Architectural tile

Iznik, Fez, Delft, Puebla. Ceramics as a wall, a floor, a dome.

Industrial

Stoke-on-Trent, Limoges, Khurja. Repeatability, press molds, transfer printing, and the plate on your table.

Hand-built

Mata Ortiz, Yixing, Oaxaca, Chulucanas. Built by hand, without a wheel, at the highest level there is.

Watch it

Now see six of these places on film.

Watch this one, then pick a place.

None of these films were made by us or for us. Between them they cover Jingdezhen, Mashiko, Bizen, Stoke, Deruta and Puebla. The still frames load while you read; the player and its cookies wait until you press play.

Twenty-four minutes in Jingdezhen with a visitor. The other five films are in the comprehensive version.

Start here: JingdezhenThe CAPITAL of Porcelain Making - Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province! S2, EP4Little Chinese Everywhere
Twenty-four minutes in Jingdezhen with a visitor: the Ancient Kilns Museum, the old town, the street food and the porcelain industrial area. Watch it and the first name on the list stops being a name. Watch on YouTube
Mashiko and Kasama, on a visitMashiko and Kasama Pottery Towns in JapanOcean Ridge Kiln
Nine minutes in Mashiko and its neighbor Kasama: the history of the mingei folk-craft movement, the pottery markets, and the local clay and architecture. Watch on YouTube
Bizen: the kiln does the decoratingBizen Pottery -The Baptism of Wood FiringRisotto Channel
Five minutes on Bizen wood firing, with the Bizen potter Jumpei Kaneshige on camera. Bizen is the whole argument for the unglazed pot. Watch on YouTube
Stoke, the long documentaryThe Story Of Stoke-On-Trent - its pots and potters | VHS Documentary 1986Memories & More
Fifty-seven minutes on Stoke-on-Trent, its pots and its potters, from a 1986 documentary. For the night you want the long version. Watch on YouTube
Italian maiolica, town by townBiordi’s Artisans: The Best in Italian CeramicsBiordiArtImports
Seventeen minutes through Italy's ceramic towns, from Caltagirone and Faenza to Deruta, Gubbio, Rimini, Florence and Siena, with artisans at work in their studios. It was made by an American importer who sells the work, so take the selling lightly. Watch on YouTube
Talavera, in two minutesTalavera pottery in Mexico: Traditional style listed by UNESCOAl Jazeera English
A short Al Jazeera news report from Puebla, soon after Talavera got its UNESCO listing. The maiolica language, crossed an ocean, still alive. Watch on YouTube

How it connects here

Many of these places are already on our shelves.

This page is a map of the world. Here is where it touches Draper, Utah.

Three things to know here

Celadon on our wall came out of Chinese kilns like Longquan; our raku workshops came from Kyoto; Bizen is wood firing and Seagrove is salt glaze, and both of those firings happen somewhere other than here. Several of the ten have a glaze, a technique or a lesson here that descends from them.

The glaze wall

Celadon began in China, and Longquan is its most famous home. Tenmoku is a Chinese tea bowl. Shino and oribe are Mino. When you read a glaze name on our wall, you are reading a place.

Raku

Our raku workshops descend from Kyoto, by way of Paul Soldner and the American potters who turned a tea-bowl technique into a bonfire. The raku lesson tells that story.

Wood, salt and soda

Bizen and Shigaraki are wood firing, and Seagrove and Stoke-on-Trent are salt glaze, which came out of the German stoneware towns. Both are in our wood-fired and salt and soda lessons, and both of those firings happen somewhere other than here.

Hand building

Yixing, Mata Ortiz and Oaxaca are proof that the wheel is optional. Our coil and burnishing lessons are the techniques of Mata Ortiz and Oaxaca.

Slab molds

Stoke-on-Trent built an industry on the plaster mold, a way to make the same plate a thousand times. Our slab molds are the friendly version of that idea.

A pilgrimage

If you have been to one of these places, bring a photograph to show and tell.

Questions people actually ask

The ones that come up when the map is open.

Which one place should I learn first?

Jingdezhen. It is the closest thing pottery has to a world capital, porcelain is the material Europe spent centuries trying to copy, and it is still full of potters. After that, Mashiko and Bizen, which are two opposite answers to the question of what a pot is for.

Why is Japan so dense with pottery towns?

Clay, wood, a tea ceremony that prized handmade pots, and centuries of regional lords who supported their own kilns. Six of those kilns have been firing continuously since the medieval period, and dozens of other towns developed their own styles a few hours apart.

What is the difference between maiolica, faience and delftware?

The same idea in three languages: a white tin glaze over earthenware, painted with color, fired once more. Italy called it maiolica, France called it faience after Faenza, and the Dutch made their blue-and-white version in Delft.

Where did celadon come from?

China. It began at the Yue kilns about eighteen hundred years ago, and Longquan became its most famous home in the Song dynasty. Korea took it further with inlaid decoration at Gangjin, and every celadon on a studio wall today is a descendant.

Is Stoke-on-Trent still making pottery?

Yes, at a fraction of its peak. Several of the great names still fire there, a few of the bottle kilns are museums, and the city is still called The Potteries.

Why are the North American places so short here?

Because they have a page of their own with twenty entries. The four here are on the world list because they belong there; the North America page gives them room.

Related lessons

Six lessons that descend from places on this map.

Three to read next.

Every technique here came from somewhere. These are the somewheres, in lesson form.

ElectivesPottery Epicenters in North AmericaTwenty places on this continent, with room to breathe. GlazingWhen to Use Celadon GlazesWhen celadon works, and when to skip it. Other ways to fireWood-Fired PotteryThe kilns, the flame path and the ash, as a technique. Other ways to fireRaku FiringFrom its Kyoto beginnings to the reduction can. Other ways to fireSalt and Soda FiringSeagrove and the German stoneware towns, as a technique. Surface and decorationBurnishing and Terra SigillataShine without a drop of glaze, as a technique.

That is the map

Dirt, fire, a place, and generations. Thirty-one times over.

Together these places cover porcelain, celadon, tea ware, wood firing, folk pottery, industrial ceramics, tin-glazed earthenware, lusterware, hand-built pottery, architectural tile and most of the decorated traditions that ever mattered. None of it is finished. Every one of these towns has a potter in it tonight, doing the thing.

If you want the other twenty-one places, Japan’s map, the ten languages and the other five films, switch to the comprehensive version at the top. Otherwise, pick one place from the ten and go find out everything about it.

Back to Clay Hole University Pottery Epicenters in North America

This is a field guide, not a ranking. It combines historical importance, technical influence, living pottery culture, recognizability and the distinctiveness of each place’s specialty, and it is selective on purpose.