Methodology
Every status on Standing is based on documented evidence from named sources, and every classification is reviewed and personally approved by a person before it's published — never generated or published automatically. This page explains exactly how that works.
The four statuses
Every site is classified into one of four descriptive statuses — never a numerical risk score. A score implies a precision this kind of evidence can't actually support; a named category, backed by a written rationale you can read yourself, is more honest about what we do and don't know.
No significant documented threats to this site's current survival, integrity, or accessibility.
Conservation or other pressures are documented, but without imminent risk to the site.
Serious, currently active threats are documented, or major historical damage remains substantially unrepaired.
Severe, currently active threats to the site's survival are documented by credible sources.
Confidence, kept separate from status
Alongside its status, every site also carries a confidence level — how well the currently available evidence actually supports that status. Confidence never changes which status a site gets; the two are reported honestly side by side. A site can be High Concern with Developing confidence, meaning the situation is serious but still unfolding and the evidence is still coming in — rather than forcing more certainty than the evidence actually supports.
Multiple corroborating high-tier sources support this status.
Credible sources support this status, with some limits on corroboration.
The situation is actively changing and evidence is still emerging.
Available sources are too limited to assess this status with confidence.
Current conditions, not a running tally of history
A site's full history is never hidden — every recorded event and every past status stays on its profile page permanently, in a timeline and a status history anyone can read. But a site's current status describes its condition as of the most recent review, not a cumulative tally of everything that has ever happened to it. Historical damage that has since been repaired or stabilized doesn't keep a site at an elevated status forever.
Historical damage is documented in the site's record, but the current classification is based on present conditions and the most recent credible evidence.
Where the information comes from
Sources are weighed in a rough hierarchy: primary/official sources (UNESCO, national heritage ministries, and organizations like ALIPH, Blue Shield, and UNOSAT) carry the most weight; then institutional and academic sources (peer-reviewed research, universities, museums, established heritage organizations); then reputable journalism (major wire services and established news outlets); and finally reference sources like Wikipedia, used only to confirm basic facts such as a site's name or coordinates — never as the sole support for a threat claim or a status.
Being a higher-tier source isn't an automatic guarantee of reliability — an individual source can still be flagged if its evidence doesn't hold up to scrutiny, and a flagged source can never, by itself, be the basis for a status. Every site profile lists its actual sources, so you can check the evidence yourself rather than take our word for it.
AI assists with researching and drafting site profiles, but it does not decide or publish classifications on its own — every status is personally reviewed and approved by a person before it goes live.
Digital Preservation Index
Separately from threat status, Standing tracks how extensively each site has been documented and made publicly accessible online — across five categories: professional photography, archival/official records, 3D digital documentation (laser scans or photogrammetry), virtual tours, and academic publications. Like the status system, this is a descriptive tier, not a numeric score.
Well documented across most or all digital preservation categories.
Documented in several categories, with some notable gaps.
Only a small amount of public digital documentation could be found.
Little to no public digital documentation could be found.
This measures what's publicly findable, not how important or well-cared-for a site is — a site with Limited documentation may still be carefully maintained, just without much of that work published online.
What this methodology doesn't claim
- It isn't a prediction. A status describes documented present conditions, not a forecast of what will happen to a site.
- It reflects the most recent review, not a live, continuously updated feed — check a site's status history for exactly when it was last reviewed.
- It can be incomplete. Evidence that couldn't be adequately sourced is left out rather than approximated, so a profile may not mention every known event.
Countries and the casebook
Countries and cases follow the same evidence rules as sites, but they have no statuses, colors, scores or rankings. They record documented facts only.
- Country treaty records come from the official registers: the UN Treaty Collection (Rome Statute) and UNESCO (World Heritage Convention, 1954 Hague Convention and its two Protocols). Each entry shows the status, the date as the register prints it, and a link to the exact page, which was read on the date shown.
- “Not listed” means the country does not appear among the signatories or parties on that register on the date we checked. An instrument that has not been researched yet is left out; it is never assumed to be absent.
- Treaty records are not a judgment. They do not show how well a state keeps its commitments, and the country list is alphabetical on purpose.
- Casebook entries are written from primary records (court judgments, tribunal documents, UN texts) wherever they can be read. The summary, legal basis, outcome and timeline state only what the record says. Analysis is kept in a separate, clearly labeled Interpretation box and is always attributed to the person or body that made it.
- If the primary record could not be read, the entry is not published until it can be. Reference sources such as Wikipedia are never the only support for a claim.