This download service provides spatial data available from Historic Environment Scotland. The following datasets are included: - World Heritage Sites - Conservation Areas - Scheduled Monuments - Gardens and Designed Landscapes - Listed Buildings - Battlefields Inventory Boundaries - Historic Marine Protected Areas - Properties in Care

The Historic Land use Assessment (HLA) is a technique for helping understand the historic aspects of the landscape around us from an archaeological perspective. The HLA records the historical origins of the various components that make up the landscape, showing how they interrelate spatially and chronologically, and in doing so offers an insight into some of the processes that have created our modern landscape and enables us to recognise how features that survive from past events continue to influence the present. As such, the HLA is a key tool for understanding the historic landscape and complements other techniques of landscape assessment. In combination these enable a more holistic view of the landscape and its development over time to be achieved and approaches to landscape management and planning to be better integrated.

Defining Scotland’s Places (DSP) aims to define the known extent of the archaeological sites and monuments in the National Record of the Historic Environment at Historic Environment Scotland, John Sinclair House, Edinburgh. The polygons created through Defining Scotland's Places do not carry ANY legal status. For instance they do not represent the legal extent of a Scheduled Monument or Listed Building.

Historic Marine Protected Areas ‘Historic MPAs’ are designated under Section 67 of the Marine Scotland Act 2010 to protect marine historic assets (e.g historic shipwrecks) of national importance within Scottish territorial waters. The Scottish Government is committed to clean, healthy, safe, productive, biologically diverse marine and coastal environments, managed to meet the long-term needs of people and nature. This includes protecting and, where appropriate, enhancing our most important historic wrecks and other marine heritage sites in such a way that they can be valued and understood. One way Scottish Ministers can achieve this is by designating nationally important marine historic assets in Scottish territorial waters as Historic Marine Protected Areas under the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010. The data shows the boundaries of all Historic Marine Protected Areas in Scotland. You should refer to the Historic Marine Protected Area site documentation for exact locations of individual boundary points and supplementary information.

This Web Map Service combines all the spatial data available from Historic Environment Scotland. The layers have not been fused and can be switch on and off independently of each other.

Compiled and managed by Historic Environment Scotland, Canmore contains over 320,000 records and 1.3 million catalogue entries from all its survey and recording work, as well as from a wide range of other organisations, communities and individuals who are helping to enhance this national resource.

The Scottish Radiocarbon index shows the location of archaeological sites in Scotland where radiocarbon dating has been undertaken. The spatial index includes a link to the relevant record on the Canmore database (https://canmore.org.uk/) listing all recorded radiocarbon determinations with hyperlinks leading to individual results. The database excludes those results that cannot be linked to an identifiable site record in Canmore. It does not represent a complete record of all radiocarbon determinations undertaken across Scotland but is relatively complete up to 2005.

The Inventory of Historic Battlefields is a list of nationally important battlefields in Scotland that meet the criteria published in SHEP 2009. It provides information on the sites to raise awareness of their significance and assist in their protection and management for the future. It is a major resource for enhancing the understanding, appreciation and enjoyment of battlefields, for promoting education and stimulating further research, and for developing their potential as attractions for visitors.

Gardens and designed landscapes are grounds which have been laid out for artistic effect and, in appropriate cases, include references to any buildings, land, or water on, adjacent, or contiguous to such grounds. Sites included in the Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes are nationally important. The criteria for determining national importance is published in Annex 5 of the Scottish Historic Environment Policy 2011. The duty to compile and maintain the Inventory is statutory. Historic Environment Scotland manages this work on behalf of the Scottish Ministers. There is no primary legislation that affords protection to Inventory gardens and designed landscapes. However, Inventory status is a material consideration in the planning system.

World Heritage Sites are described by UNESCO as exceptional places of ‘outstanding universal value’ and ‘belonging to all the peoples of the world, irrespective of the territory on which they are located’. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) seeks to protect and preserve such sites through an international treaty called the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, drawn up in 1972 Scottish Ministers identify and put forward sites to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport for nomination. This dataset includes both the legal designation and buffer zone boundaries of the World Heritage Sites in Scotland enscribed by UNESCO as well as non-statutory sensitive areas for planning advice. Once a World Heritage Site is inscribed, under the Convention, member states have a duty to protect, conserve and present such sites for future generations.