A dish drying mat has elongate spaced-apart ribs upwardly extending from a general upper surface, and spaced-apart dimples downwardly extending from a general lower surface. The lateral locations of the ribs and the dimples do not intersect. A lower portion of a marginal wall has at least one gap so as to communicate a continuous lower volume below the general lower surface to the atmosphere beyond the peripheral margin of the mat. At rounded corners, the peripheral wall has inwardly concave surfaces which are sized to fit to a thumb or finger of a user's hand when grasping or cleaning the mat.