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Land tenure is the relationship, whether legally or customarily defined, among people, as individuals or groups, with respect to land. (For convenience, “land” is used here to include other natural resources such as water and trees.) Land tenure is an institution, i.e., rules invented by societies to regulate behaviour. Rules of tenure define how property rights to land are to be allocated within societies. They define how access is granted to rights to use, control, and transfer land, as well as associated responsibilities and restraints. In simple terms, land tenure systems determine who can use what resources for how long, and under what conditions.

Land tenure is an important part of social, political and economic structures. It is multi-dimensional, bringing into play social, technical, economic, institutional, legal and political aspects that are often ignored but must be taken into account. Land tenure relationships may be well-defined and enforceable in a formal court of law or through customary structures in a community. Alternatively, they may be relatively poorly defined with ambiguities open to exploitation.

Land tenure thus constitutes a web of intersecting interests. These include:

Overriding interests: when a sovereign power (e.g., a nation or community has the powers to allocate or reallocate land through expropriation, etc.)

Overlapping interests: when several parties are allocated different rights to the same parcel of land (e.g., one party may have lease rights, another may have a right of way, etc.)

Complementary interests: when different parties share the same interest in the same parcel of land (e.g., when members of a community share common rights to grazing land, etc.)

Competing interests: when different parties contest the same interests in the same parcel (e.g., when two parties independently claim rights to exclusive use of a parcel of agricultural land. Land disputes arise from competing claims.)

Land tenure is often categorised as:

Private: the assignment of rights to a private party who may be an individual, a married couple, a group of people, or a corporate body such as a commercial entity or non-profit organization. For example, within a community, individual families may have exclusive rights to residential parcels, agricultural parcels and certain trees. Other members of the community can be excluded from using these resources without the consent of those who hold the rights.

Communal: a right of commons may exist within a community where each member has a right to use independently the holdings of the community. For example, members of a community may have the right to graze cattle on a common pasture.

Open access: specific rights are not assigned to anyone and no-one can be excluded. This typically includes marine tenure where access to the high seas is generally open to anyone; it may include rangelands, forests, etc, where there may be free access to the resources for all. (An important difference between open access and communal systems is that under a communal system non-members of the community are excluded from using the common areas.)

State: property rights are assigned to some authority in the public sector. For example, in some countries, forest lands may fall under the mandate of the state, whether at a central or decentralised level of government.

In practice, most forms of holdings may be found within a given society, for example, common grazing rights, private residential and agricultural holdings, and state ownership of forests. Customary tenure typically includes communal rights to pastures and exclusive private rights to agricultural and residential parcels. In some countries, formally recognised rights to such customary lands are vested in the nation state or the President “in trust” for the citizens.