Significance is a collective term for the sum of all the heritage values attached to a place, be it a building an archaeological site or a larger historic area such as a whole community or a landscape.

People see significance in historic places in many different ways. These values can be grouped into three categories:

Evidence value: the potential of a place to yield evidence about past human activity, which depends on evidence of the ways in which past people, events and aspects of life can be connected through a place to the present. The evidence tends to be illustrative (exemplifies a principle) or associative .

Aesthetic value: the ways in which people draw sensory and intellectual stimulation from a place.

Communal value: the meanings of a place for the people who relate to it personally, or for whom it figures in their collective experience or memory.

Historical Significance of Place