Research was conducted in northern Namibia to document and investigate the value of local knowledge connected with soil and land management, in particular with respect to the cultivation of grain legumes. Participatory approaches were used to describe and map the indigenous land unit (ILU) classification system in four villages. Soil and crop analyses indicated good correspondence between conventional productivity assessments and farmers' more qualitative descriptions of the ILUs. Patterns of land ownership were investigated to explore the relationship between the diversity of ILU land-holding, location and history of settlement. Keywords: Northern Namibia; Soil fertility; Ethnopedology; Legumes; Pearl millet; GIS.