Secretariats and municipalities in all regions of the Kingdom are preparing to implement the project to inventory more than a thousand buildings and sites in various regions in cooperation with the General Authority for Tourism and National Heritage, as part of the urban heritage buildings and sites inventory project, where a national information base was established for these sites in the Kingdom to enable researchers, investors and interested parties to access the information and documents required to deal with urban heritage.

Using modern technologies

On this occasion, the General Supervisor of the National Urban Heritage Center at the Authority, Mishari Al-Naim, explained that the inventory process is carried out through the development of an institutional system in cooperation with the concerned authorities, noting the use of modern technologies in the inventory project of urban heritage sites and buildings, including geographic information systems (GIS), 3D models, virtual reality, laser scanning, and the development of terminals that help document, preserve, monitor and manage heritage, and continuously update and retrieve information.

The project includes a system that enables researchers, investors, and interested parties to access the information and documents required to deal with urban heritage. The project includes an integrated system including registration, documentation, analysis, protection, follow-up, management systems, legal status and activation of relevant legislation, regulations and decisions, as well as the integration of urban heritage resources data with national heritage records, and the future expansion of the project to include special databases in the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs, relevant bodies and institutions that will help achieve the Authority's strategic objectives, which are to unify lists of urban heritage sites and provide data, attributes, coordinates and photographs of urban heritage sites.

The project includes an integrated system including registration, documentation, analysis, protection, follow-up, management systems, legal status and activation of relevant legislation, regulations and decisions.

Categorizing Urban Heritage Sites

Al-Naim pointed out that the Authority classifies urban heritage sites, creates relationships between urban heritage data, regularly updates the geographic information system, and supports future management and planning processes, among others.

He noted that the center provides data, attributes, coordinates, and photographs. He pointed out that the center is in the process of designing a database of urban heritage sites and buildings with specialized entities, and a number of technicians and heritage researchers are following up on the register under the direct supervision of the General Supervisor of the National Urban Heritage Center.

Linking the Urban Heritage Register with Antiquities

<Al-Naim pointed out that the National Urban Heritage Registry relies on national cadres and technical assistance from regional secretariats, municipalities and universities to complete its information, as everyone participates in the efforts to preserve the urban heritage. He said: “The center will work to link the urban heritage register with the existing antiquities register, as well as with special databases in the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs and the real estate register in the Ministry of Justice in the future, to become a national register par excellence that all relevant bodies and institutions can easily and conveniently carry out.”

The project consists of a national registry. The project consists of two parts. The first part is to create a database of sites of heritage importance in the Kingdom using geographic information systems (GIS), and the second part is to create a marketing database that helps to market urban heritage sites as tourism products.