The National Historic Landmarks Program

Common Questions and Answers

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The following are the most common questions that owners of potential National Historic Landmarks, and new owners of designated National Historic Landmarks, ask the National Park Service. There is a variety of printed information available on the Landmarks program, which outline the program's procedures and the effects of Landmark designation.

 

1. What are National Historic Landmarks?

 

 National Historic Landmarks are buildings, sites, districts, structures, and objects that have been determined by the Secretary of the Interior to be nationally significant in American history and culture. Many of the most renowned historic properties in the Nation are Landmarks. Mount Vernon, Pearl Harbor, the Apollo Mission Control Center, Alcatraz, the Martin Luther King Birthplace in Atlanta, Georgia, and The Kennedy Farmhouse, the staging area for the John Brown historic raid on Harpers Ferry Va. are Landmarks that illustrate important contributions to the Nation's historical development.

 
2. How are National Historic Landmarks Selected?

 

 Potential Landmarks are identified primarily through theme studies undertaken by the National Park Service; these studies provide a comparative analysis of properties associated with a specific area of American history, such as Labor or Women's History. The historic importance of these potential Landmarks is evaluated by the National Park Service and the National Park System Advisory Board twice yearly at meetings that are open to the public. The Advisory Board includes citizens who are national and community leaders in the conservation of natural, historic, and cultural areas. Recommendations by the Advisory Board are made to the Secretary of the Interior on potential National Historic Landmarks.     Final decisions regarding National Historic Landmark designation are made by the Secretary of the Interior.

 

3. What criteria are used to select National Historic Landmarks?

 

 The quality of national significance is ascribed to districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects that possess exceptional value or quality in illustrating or interpreting the heritage of the United States in history, architecture, archeology, technology and culture; and that possess a high degree of integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association, and:

  1. That is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to, and are identified with, or that outstandingly represents, the broad national patterns of United States history and from which an understanding and appreciation of those patterns may be gained; or

  2.  That are associated importantly with the lives of persons nationally significant in the history of the United States; or

  3. That represent some great idea or ideal of the American people.

4. How are National Historic   Landmarks different from other historic properties listed in the National Register of Historic Places? All National Historic Landmarks are included in the National Register which is the official list of the Nation's historic properties worthy of preservation. Landmarks constitute more than 2,100 of almost 65,000 entries in the National Register; the others are of State and local significance. The process for listing a property in the National Register is different from that for Landmark designation with different criteria and procedures used. Some properties are recommended as nationally significant when they are nominated to the National Register, but before they can be designated as National Historic Landmarks, they must be evaluated by the National Park Service's National Historic Landmark Survey, reviewed by the National Park System Advisory Board, and recommended to the Secretary of the Interior. Some properties listed in the National Register are subsequently identified by the Survey as nationally significant; others are identified for the first time during Landmark theme studies or other special studies. Both the National Historic Landmarks and the National Register programs are administered by the National Park Service under the Secretary of the Interior.  

 

 

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Last modified: Thursday August 18, 2005.