Yayla is Crimean Tatar and Turkish for alpine meadow or mountain plateau. Cognate words with identical meaning exist in other Turkic languages. Generally located at high elevations and inaccessible for much of the year, these meadows were the traditional summer grazing areas for pastoralists, both settled and nomadic.
The word is also used in Ukrainian and Russian as яйла to refer to the topography of the Crimean Mountains.