We show that diffraction features of 1D quasicrystals can be retrieved from a single topological quantity, the Čech cohomology group, Ȟ1 ∼ = Z 2 , which encodes all relevant combinatorial information of tilings. We present a constructive way to calculate Ȟ1 for a large variety of aperiodic tilings. By means of two winding numbers, we compare the diffraction features contained in Ȟ1 to the gap labeling theorem, another topological tool used to label spectral gaps in the integrated density of states. In the light of this topological description, we discuss similarities and differences between families of aperiodic tilings, and the resilience of topological features against perturbations.