This paper explores the legal and spatial practices that defined the land regime in the Crimean Khanate from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. While the general contours of landownership in the khanate have been described in historical scholarship, this study uses an untapped sourcebase and an innovative methodology to argue that we cannot understand land regimes without understanding spatial cultures. This is the first study to use GIS methods to map the topographical narratives embedded in land dispute documents. The archives of the khanate are incomplete, and what remains is scattered from Istanbul to St. Petersburg. But in the nineteenth century, a handful of dedicated scholars published document collections in well-respected regional journals such as the Bulletin of the Tavrida Scholarly Archival Commission and the Reports of the Odessa Society for History and Antiquity. One of those projects resulted in the publication of hundreds of Crimean yarlyks and firmans. The documents range over three centuries and detail the various mechanisms for property acquisition, including inheritance through maternal and paternal lines, pious endowment, clan succession, purchase, and grant. Many deal with disputed properties. Without fail, they include – in fact, they hinge on – precise descriptions of boundaries, such as one that painstakingly traces a narrow stream along the floor of a ravine and up into a kişla (winter sheepfold). The property then skirts the shrubs of a çair (alpine meadow) before climbing to a village road. Documents like this offer rich data about the historical topography of the khanate: data we can leverage through mapping. They also offer insights into spatial culture. Crimeans employed a different vocabulary than those used by the Ottoman and Russian states (Crimea was declared independent of Ottoman rule in 1774 and was annexed by Russia in 1783). They measured area differently and assessed value according to different criteria. This paper will show not just what Crimeans owned, but how their descriptions of water, vegetation, elevation, and the built environment, defined the landscape.