Toilets of the World

Welcome to the Toilets of the World

Are you wondering why people hoard toilet paper? Wondering how to use a bidet, or even what a bidet is? Curious about what the toilets are like in other countries? Toilets from ancient history? Do you wonder who invented the flush toilet? (It wasn't Thomas Crapper!) You've come to the right place!

Toilets around the world:
Belgium Bulgaria China France Greek Islands Japan Morocco Trinidad Russia and many others
Toilets from throughout history:
The Stone Age Ancient Greece Ancient Rome Bible era King Arthur's England Invention of the flush toilet To the toilets of the future

78 days until Thomas Crapper's birthday

137 days until World Toilet Day

Answers for your important questions: Why do people hoard toilet paper? Did Thomas Crapper invent the flush toilet? Should I squat or sit? Should I wipe or wash? Where do I put used paper, in the bowl or in the bin? When did public toilets become segregated by sex? What is a bidet? What is a toilet snorkel? Should I incinerate my sewage in the basement?

Toilets of world leaders, artists, and authors: The Ottoman Sultan Woodrow Wilson Leon Trotsky Winston Churchill Adolf Hitler Dwight Eisenhower Robert Kennedy William Shakespeare Edgar Allan Poe Vincent Van Gogh Jim Morrison Lady Gaga

How to Buy and Install Your Own Squat Toilet in Your Home

Chinese plumbing shop, Yangshuo, Guangxi Province, People's Republic of China.

People ask me from time to time, "How can I install a squat toilet in my home?" These might be people who have recently moved to the U.S. Once in a while it's someone like a U.S. Air Force veteran who was stationed at Incirlik Air Force Base in Turkey and came to prefer squatting. Sometimes it's someone squatting for health reasons. You can purchase squat toilets in the U.S. The difficult part is getting them installed and, in some places, getting the installation approved through health or building safety inspections. A few alternatives or workarounds are available. Here is everything I have been able to find on the topic.

If you want to have a squat toilet in your home or office, there are three possible solutions:

Buy and install a squat toilet.
Buy and use a portable squat toilet.
Buy or build an elevated squatting platform contraption. Try not to fall off of it and hurt yourself.

Water channel running to the reredorter or monastic toilet at the Abbaye de Saint-Hilaire, near Ménerbes, in the Luberon, Provence, in southern France.

This is the reredorter, the communal latrine at the Abbaye de Saint-Hilaire near Ménerbes in the Luberon region of Provence, in southern France.

A water tank, out of sight behind us but shown in detail on the detailed page, would have provided a stream of water which would have flowed through the channel allowing the monks to clean themselves. Waste would flow downhill, away from us in this picture, to drain through the wall supporting this elevated wing of the abbey and fertilizing the orchard.

You can also compare this French monastic reredorter to the medieval English reredorter built and used during the same centuries at the Abbey of Glastonbury in southwestern England.

Check back tomorrow for another featured toilet!

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