Old Simferopol, known locally as the Old Town (Crimean Tatar: Eski şeer, Ukrainian: Старе місто), is an area of the city of Simferopol which until the end of the 18th century served as the centre of the city of Aqmescit. The old town consists of narrow, short streets constructed in a traditional Turkic style. In the 19th century it was also referred to by travellers as the "Asian town" because of the contrast with Simferopol's other regular, European-style neighbourhoods. Today, some of the neighbouring 19th-century, single-storey, European-style buildings are also considered to be part of the old town. The area is bounded by Lenin, Sevastopol's'ka, Krylov, and Chervonoarmiis'ka streets. The population of the old town is approximately 50,000.

The Old Town is unique in Simferopol for its preserved historic architecture and layout. In the 1950s-1970s, many film studios in the Soviet Union used Old Simferopol as a set for films set in historical provincial towns. Today the Old Town suffers from a number of a development problems and remains a point of contention for the Russian-controlled city administration.

The modern-day old town is located on the site of the Crimean Tatar town of Aqmescit, which later became part of Simferopol after the city was founded. Kebir-Jami, the settlement's main mosque, was built in 1508 from grey-white limestone, which gave the city the name of Aqmescit (in Crimean Tatar, literally "white mosque"). By 1783 there were 308 houses in the town (of which 84 had been partially destroyed by Russian Imperial forces under the leadership of Burkhard Christoph von Münnich in 1736), seven mosques, three maktabs, and one madrassa.

Most houses at that time were single-storey buildings made of clay mortar, with tiled roofs. The different blocks were curved in shape and separated from each other by narrow streets and numerous cul de sacs. In two-storey buildings, the ground floor was set aside for commercial and non-personal use. It is assumed that the street layout was designed to confuse an invading army in the event of an invasion, causing them to get lost in the maze of streets.

Drinking water for the town was taken from springs on the eastern slopes of Scythian Neapolis. 18th-century Prussian traveller Peter Simon Pallas later described the town's water source as follows:

Originally, the town was served by an underground water supply, which originated in a spring located three versts from the city, near the Bakhchysarai road.

Following the Annexation of the Crimean Khanate by the Russian Empire in 1783, it was decided to move the capital of Taurida Oblast (encompassing the majority of the lands of the annexed Crimean Khanate) from the city of Karasubazar to the town of Aqmescit. Simferopol proper is considered to have been founded in 1784. In the minutes of a meeting of Taurida Oblast's government, it is noted that "from Aqmescit, the local capital city of Simferopol will be created." In 1784, under the leadership of Prince Grigory Potemkin, work began on administrative and residential buildings as well as an Orthodox church in the area north-west of Kebir-Jami Mosque. The border between the city blocks constructed under the Crimean Khanate and those constructed under the Russian Empire runs approximately along the modern-day Karaimskaia, Kavkazskaia, and Proletarskaia streets.

At the turn of the 20th century, the Old Town was home primarily to a Jewish, Crimean Karaite, Crimean Tatar, Roma, Greek, and Armenian population.