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Archaeological Heritage refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Archaeological Site refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Archival Heritage refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Authenticity refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Built Heritage refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Strategies and measures to protect cultural heritage from the effects of climate change. This includes adjusting how sites are managed in response to rising sea levels, increasing temperatures, more intense storms, or changing humidity patterns. Examples are installing better drainage at flood-prone historic sites, choosing climate-resistant materials for repairs, or documenting at-risk traditions so they are not lost due to environmental changes.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Acts of remembrance honoring people or events of significance, often through ceremonies, memorials, or anniversaries. Communities commemorate to keep memories alive, using symbols or rituals to pay respect and reinforce shared history.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Community Heritage refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Cultural Continuity refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Cultural Diversity refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Cultural Heritage refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Cultural Identity refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Cultural Landscape refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Cultural Mapping refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Cultural Property refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

A thematic pathway or network that links multiple heritage sites and locations across one or more regions or countries. These routes are defined by a common historical, cultural, or artistic theme (such as a pilgrimage trail or trade route) and promote understanding of shared heritage through the journey.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Cultural Significance refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Cultural content and expressions that are created, stored, or presented in digital form. This includes digitized collections (like scanned manuscripts or 3D models of artifacts) and born-digital materials (such as digital art, photography, or oral history recordings), which require special care to preserve for future access.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Records and documents of important cultural value, such as manuscripts, archives, photographs, films, and sound recordings. This form of heritage, often preserved in libraries, archives, or museums, serves as a memory of society by capturing information and stories from the past.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Folklore refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Gastronomic Heritage refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Heritage Community refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Heritage Custodian refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Heritage Education refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Heritage Impact refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Heritage Interpretation refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Heritage Register refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Heritage Stewardship refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Heritage Tourism refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Heritage Values refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

A geographically defined urban or rural area recognized for its concentration of historic buildings, structures, or sites. Such districts reflect a common historical period or architectural style and are often protected by regulations to preserve their character.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

The practice and field dedicated to protecting, conserving, and restoring historic buildings, sites, and artifacts for the future. It involves research, planning, and interventions that respect the original character and significance of heritage places while keeping them functional and safe.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

An approach to urban heritage management that views historic cities not just as collections of monuments, but as living landscapes shaped by a layering of cultural and natural features. It emphasizes integrating heritage conservation with social and economic development in the entire urban context.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Immovable Heritage refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

The time-honored wisdom, know-how, and beliefs developed by indigenous communities through long-term interaction with their environment. It includes practices related to agriculture, medicine, cosmology, and resource management, and is transmitted orally or by example.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Historical sites, buildings, and objects associated with manufacturing, mining, transportation, and other industries. Examples include old factories, mills, railways, and machinery. Industrial heritage also covers the traditions and social history of workers and communities shaped by industrialization.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Intangible Cultural Heritage refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Intangible Heritage Bearers refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Integrity refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

A Japanese repair practice that mends broken ceramics with lacquer and powdered metal, making cracks visible. It treats damage as part of an object’s history and meaning.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Language as Heritage refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Cultural knowledge and practices that are actively maintained and passed on within communities today. It highlights that heritage is not only about preserving the past, but also about ongoing, evolving traditions that give communities a sense of identity and continuity.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Local Heritage refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

The cultural and material legacy connected to human interaction with the sea. It encompasses traditions of seafaring, shipbuilding, navigation, fishing practices, as well as related artifacts, historic ships, coastal sites, and folklore of maritime communities.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Modern Heritage refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Monument refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Movable Heritage refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

National Heritage refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Oral Tradition refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

A journey undertaken for spiritual or cultural reasons to a site of special significance. Pilgrimages are traditional in many religions and cultures – travelers (pilgrims) often follow ancestral routes to sacred shrines or holy places, seeking personal meaning, healing, or fulfillment as part of their heritage practice.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Provenance refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Site Buffer Zone refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

A place – which can be a location, landmark, or landscape – that holds significant historical memory for a group of people. Sites of memory are often associated with notable or traumatic events (such as battlefields, memorials, or former institutions) and serve as focal points for remembrance and education.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

The unique atmosphere, character, or feeling that a location evokes, shaped by its history, environment, and cultural associations. Also known by the French term genius loci, it refers to the intangible essence that makes a heritage place special or meaningful to people.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Statement of Significance refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Tangible Cultural Heritage refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Traditional Craftsmanship refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

The accumulated knowledge and understanding of the natural environment that indigenous and local communities develop over centuries. TEK includes insights on weather patterns, animal behaviors, planting cycles, and sustainable resource use, reflecting a close relationship between cultural practices and the ecosystem.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Long-standing knowledge, know-how, and practices developed by communities over generations, especially related to their environment, health, and way of life. This can include knowledge of plant medicines, sustainable farming, weather forecasting, or crafting techniques, and is usually transmitted through oral tradition and example.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Underwater Cultural Heritage refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

Vernacular Architecture refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

World Heritage Site refers to cultural expressions, places, or objects valued for their historical, artistic, social, or spiritual meaning. It helps communities maintain identity and continuity while guiding protection and responsible use.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS

The study of animal remains from archaeological contexts to understand past diets, environments, and human–animal relationships. Findings inform interpretation of sites and cultural practices.

Source: UNESCO, ICOMOS