World Heritage and a National Register: The Canadian Experience

This paper adopts a Canadian perspective to address the two central subjects of the Savannah Symposium: World Heritage and a National Register. It begins with an overview of the development of a national register in Canada, with its increasing emphasis on identifying heritage value. Value in turn is the primary qualification for inscription on the World Heritage List. The paper examines Canada’s two urban World Heritage sites: Old Québec and Old Town Lunenburg. It describes the two historic places and identifies some of the impacts that inscription has had on them. Comparisons are then made between the Canadian and the international experiences.