[1] The resm-i dönüm was based on the dönüm, a measure of farm size;[2] this is parallel to the resm-i çift, a tax based on the çift (the area that could be ploughed by one team of oxen).
[3] In some cases, the resm-i dönüm was specific to a kind of lease agreement that an otherwise landless peasant would make with a sipahi (feudal lord)[4] and it may actually have resembled a rent more than a tax.
Since the rate of resm-i dönüm was recorded in tax codes such as kanunname, and the area of a dönüm is known, tax documents which detail the amount of resm-i dönüm paid by each community allow historians to understand the varying areas of land under cultivation at different times and in different provinces.
One variation was resm-i dönüm-i haşhâş, a tax applied to opium growers in place of Ashar,[6] at a rate of 1 krş per dönüm - although the detailed accounts of opium production recorded in defters suggest that in this case resm-i dönüm may actually have been levied by weight of produce, rather than by area.
[7] In some Albanian-speaking areas, resm-i dönüm may have been a tax specific to vineyards.