The Crimean Khanate or the Khanate of Crimea (; - Krymskoye khanstvo; - Kryms'ke khanstvo; ) was a Crimean Tatar state from 1441 to 1783. It was by far the longest-lived of Turkic khanates succeeding to the Golden Horde Empire.

Girays traced their origins to Chingiz Khan, and this made them prevalent among other noble clans. According to the steppe tradition, the ruler was legitimate only if he is of Chingizid royal descent (i.e. ak süyek). Even the Muscovite Tsar claimed Chingizid descent. Instead of the Ottoman ideology of autocracy, the Crimean Khanate followed the Horde tradition. (Schamiloglu) That is, the Giray dynasty was the symbol of government but the khan actually governed with the participation of Qaraçı Beys, the leaders of the noble clans such as Şirin, Barın, Arğın, Qıpçaq, and in the later period, Mansuroğlu and Sicavut. The Nogays who transferred their allegiance to the Crimean khan when the Astrakhan Khanate collapsed in 1556, were an important element of the Crimean Khanate. Circassians and Cossacks also played role at certain times in Crimean politics, transferring their allegiance between the khan and the beys.

Internally, the khanate territory was divided among the beys and beneath the beys were mirzas from noble families. The relationship of peasants or herdsmen to mirzas were not feudal. They were free, and Islamic law protected them from losing their rights. Apportioned by village, the land was worked in common and the tax was assigned to whole village. The tax was one tenth of agricultural product, one twentieh of the livestock and a variable unpaid labour. During the reforms by the last khan Şahin Giray the internal structure was changed following the Turkish pattern: land-ownings of nobility were proclaimed the domain of the khan and reorganized into "qadılıqs" (provinces governed by representatives of the khan).

Crimean law was based on Tatar law, Islamic law and on limited matters the Ottoman law. The leader of the Muslim establishment was the mufti, who was selected among the local muslim clergy. His major duty was neither judicial nor theological, it was financial. The mufti’s administration controlled all of the vakif lands and their enomous revenues. Another Muslim official, appointed not by the clergy but the Ottoman sultan was the kadıasker. He oversaw the khanate’s judicial districts, each under jurisdiction of a kadi. Kadis theoretically depended on kadiasker but in practice to the clan leaders and the khan. The kadis determined the day to day legal behaviour of the Muslims in the khanate.

The non-Muslim minorities (Greeks, Armenians, Adyghe (Cherkessians), Genoeses, Crimean Karaites and Qırımçaq Jews) lived in the cities and villages, sometimes having different quarters. They had their own religious and judicial institutions according to the millet system. They controlled the financial occupations and trade, and paid tax in return for which they did not serve in the military. There is no evidence that they faced any discrimination, they lived like Crimean Tatars, and spoke dialects of Crimean Tatar. (Alan Fisher, 1978)

The nomadic part of the Crimean Tatars and all the Nogays were cattle-breeders. Crimea had important trading ports where the goods carried through Silk Road were exported to the Ottoman Empire and Europe. Crimean Khanate had many sizeable, beautiful and lively cities such as Bakhchisaray - the capital, Kezlev, Karasubazar and Aqmescit having numerous caravansarais, hans and merchant quarters, leather-manufactures, mills. The settled Crimean Tatars were engaged in trade, agriculture, and artisanry. Crimea was a center of wine and tobacco production, and fruit farming. The Bakhchisaray kilims (oriental rugs) were exported to Poland, and knives made by Crimean Tatar artisans were thought to be best among the Caucasian tribes. Crimean Tatars were famous Silkworm cultivation, and honey production. One of the major sources of incomes of Crimean Tatar and Nogay nobility was booty attained from campaigns to the neighbouring countries and slave trade. (Brian G. Williams)