Unusual and interesting toilets from all around the world.

Toilets of the World

Welcome to the Toilets of the World

Are you 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 Turkey 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

186 days until Thomas Crapper's birthday

245 days until World Toilet Day

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
Answers for your important questions: 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?

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:

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

Read more about installing your own squat toilet, including U.S. squat toilet regulations »

Today's Featured Plumbing
Skylab space station toilet.
Skylab was the U.S. space station in the 1970s. An additional unit was built and could have been orbited if funding hadn't been cut, it's now in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C.

This is Skylab's Waste Management Compartment. The square opening into the bulkhead at right is the Wash Basin. The white oval plastic device and the surrounding plumbing are the Waste Collection Facilities.

My page of Spacecraft Toilets includes toilet systems from the Soviet/Russian Mir (or Мир) and Soyuz (or Союз), and urine and fecal collection systems from Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing, from the early Mercury program, and the later Space Shuttle.
Check back tomorrow for another featured toilet!
Who is the Toilet Guru?
Bob Cromwell seated on the ancient public toilets in Ephesus.

Who is the Toilet Guru? Is he obsessed? What is it like to be the Toilet Guru? Why does this site exist?

Read more

Let's visit the toilets!