It was widely used in the northern and northwestern Indian subcontinent, in the Indus River plain, and adjoining areas, comprising Punjab, Sindh, Kashmir, and some parts of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The Laṇḍā scripts form a "typologically distinct group," and are closer in norms to its predecessor Brahmi than they are to the Nāgarī scripts to the east, in their general avoidance of conjunct glyphs or marking of the Middle Indo-Aryan geminations distinctive of Panjābī.

"[1] Landa scripts were originally used as mercantile shorthand for commercial purposes in the Punjab region and Sindh; they often lacked the full set of vowel sounds, as well as often imperfect correspondence of consonants.

Various technical improvements would make certain descendant scripts fully suitable for literary use, primarily motivated by interest in recording religious scripture, particularly in the cases of Gurmukhī in Punjab, and Khojkī in Sindh.

Grammarians of the 19th century variously identified as many as six Laṇḍā forms used in Punjab and as many as twelve in Sindh.