Cultural assets of national interest. By type

Others (Cultural assets)

In this section, we include historical gardens and historical sites, paleontological areas or areas of ethnological interest.

Cultural assets of national interest (BCIN)

Assets that enjoy the currently valid legal protection. They are classified as: historic sites, historic gardens, historic monuments, archaeological zones and paleontological zones.

Historic sites

Group of assets, either continuous or disperse, that constitute a coherent and delimited unit and an entity in its own right, even though each of these individually may not offer the relevant values.

Historical garden

Delimited space that is the result of the ordering of natural elements by man and that may include fabricated structures.

Historic place

Natural site where there is a group of assets that form part of a coherent unit for historic or cultural reasons and that are associated to events or records of the past, and which contain man-made works of historic or technical value.

Historical monument

Construction or other type of material work produced by human activity and that configures a unique and outstanding unit.

Archaeological zone

Place where there are remains of human intervention that is only susceptible to being studied in depth using archaeological methodology, whether found on the surface or underground or underwater.

Paleontologic zone

Place where there are fossilised remains that constitute a coherent unit and that are an entity in their own right, even if each individual part of this zone is not of relevant value.

Law 9/1993, of September 30, on Catalan Cultural Heritage, created the figures of the Register of Cultural Assets of National Interest (BCIN) and the Catalogue of Assets of Catalan Cultural Heritage (Minister of Culture), in order to provide special recognition and protection to assets that, as well as having the inherent characteristics of the assets pertaining to cultural heritage (and therefore forming part of the Inventory of Catalan Cultural Heritage) meet certain conditions or values that increase their cultural significance and importance. These assets are considered protected and outstanding and must be included in the BCIN Register or in the Catalogue of Catalan Cultural Heritage.

The BCIN Register must include the most relevant assets of Catalan cultural heritage. Documentary heritage forms part of its section on chattel, which can be registered by being declared individual assets (documentary units) or collections (archives, collections in the strictest sense or other groups of documents). Declaration as cultural assets of national interest requires a report to be produced beforehand that must contain "a clear and accurate description of the asset or assets", historical reports, graphic documentation and a detailed report about how well conserved it is.

As of 2021, the territorial disaggregation of the data is Catalonia.