Crimean Khanate, or Khanate of Crimea (Crimean Tatar: Qırım Hanlığı, قريم خانلغى‎; Russian: Крымское ханство - Krymskoye khanstvo; Ukrainian: Кримське ханство - Kryms'ke khanstvo; Turkish: Kırım Hanlığı; Polish: Chanat Krymski), was a state ruled by Crimean Tatars from 1441 to 1783. Its native name was Crimean Tatar: Qırım Yurtu, قريم يورتى‎ (Ottoman Turkish and Arabic  :خانية القرم). Its khans were the patrilineal descendants of Toqa Temür, the thirteenth son of Jochi and grandson of Genghis Khan. This khanate was by far the longest-lived of the Turkic khanates that succeeded the empire of the Golden Horde.

The Crimean Khanate was founded when certain clans of the Golden Horde Empire ceased their nomadic life in the Desht-i Kipchak (Kypchak Steppes of today's Ukraine and South Russia) and decided to make Crimea their yurt (homeland), which at that time had been an ulus (district) of the Golden Horde since 1239, with its capital at Qirim (Staryi Krym). The local separatists invited a Genghisid contender for the Golden Horde throne, Hacı Giray, to be their khan. Hacı Giray accepted their invitation and traveled from exile in Lithuania. He warred for independence against the Horde from 1420 to 1441, in the end achieving success. But Hacı Giray then had to fight off internal rivals before he could ascend the throne of the khanate in 1449, after which he moved its capital to Qırq Yer (today part of Bahçeseray). The khanate included the Crimean peninsula (except the south and southwest coast and ports, controlled by the Republic of Genoa) and the steppes of modern southern Ukraine and Russia.

Crimean Tatars (sg. Qırımtatar, pl. Qırımtatarlar) or Crimeans (sg. Qırım, Qırımlı, pl. Qırımlar, Qırımlılar) are a Turkic ethnic group that originally resided in Crimea. They speak the Crimean Tatar language. They are not to be confused with the Volga Tatars.

In modern times, in addition to living in Crimea, Ukraine, there is a large diaspora of Crimean Tatars in Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Uzbekistan, Western Europe, the Middle East and North America, as well as small communities in Finland, Lithuania, Russia, Belarus and Poland. (See Crimean Tatar diaspora)

Today, more than 240,000 Crimean Tatars live in Crimea and about 150,000 remain in exile in Central Asia, mainly in Uzbekistan. There is an unspecified number of people of Crimean Tatar origin living in Turkey, descendants of those who emigrated in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the Dobruja region straddling Romania and Bulgaria, there are more than 27,000 Crimean Tatars: 24,000 on the Romanian side, and 3,000 on the Bulgarian side^{[citation needed]}.

The Tatar language (татар теле, татарча, tatar tele, tatarça), or more specifically Kazan Tatar, is a Turkic language spoken by the Tatars of historical Kazan Khanate, including modern Tatarstan and Bashkortostan. It should not be confused with the Crimean Tatar language, to which it is remotely related.

Tatar is spoken in Russia (about 5.3 million people), Central Asia, Ukraine, Poland, China, Finland, Turkey and other countries.

Tatar is also native for some thousands of Maris. Mordva's Qaratay group also speak Tatar. 94% of ethnic Tatar claimed knowledge of Tatar language during the 2002 census.

File:Хальфин Азбука татарского языка 1778.pdf

Tatar, along with Russian, is the official language of the Republic of Tatarstan. The official script of Tatar language is based on the Cyrillic script with some additional letters. Sometimes other scripts are used, mostly Latin and Arabic. All official sources in Tatarstan use Cyrillic at their web-sites and publishing. In other cases, where Tatar has no official status, the use of a specific alphabet depends on the preference of the author. Guides in Tatarstan are published in two alphabets.