Getting listed

The four criteria and the seven aspects of integrity, in plain English

John HarrisonUpdated October 2026

A property qualifies for the National Register if it is significant under at least one of four criteria (A: events, B: people, C: design or construction, D: information potential) and keeps enough of its historic character to show that significance. That second test is integrity, judged through seven aspects: location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling and association.

The criteria are a regulation, 36 CFR 60.4, and the National Park Service, which keeps the Register, explains how to apply them in National Register Bulletin 15. What follows is a plain-language reading of both, with one listed property for each criterion taken from the nominations on this site.

The threshold question: significance in a historic context

Before the criteria come into play, Bulletin 15 asks you to place the property in a historic context: a theme, a place and a period. A mill is not significant because it is a mill; it is significant because of what milling meant to a particular town in a particular era, and because this building represents that better than, or as well as, the alternatives. Significance can be local, state or national, and most listings are local.

Criterion A: associated with events or patterns of history

Criterion A covers properties associated with events that made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history. The event can be a single occurrence or a long pattern, such as the growth of a transit system or a wave of settlement. The property has to have a real connection to that history, not just date from the same years.

Example: the Abilene Street Railway Company Barn in Abilene, Texas, listed in 1992 under Criterion A alone. It is a plain metal-clad shed, built around 1910 to house the city’s streetcars. The nomination’s case is that the streetcar system, which ran from 1908 to 1931, was a civic achievement for a town of that size and that the barn is the only visible reminder of it left. Nothing about the building is architecturally notable; the association is what qualifies it.

Criterion B: associated with a significant person

Criterion B covers properties associated with the lives of persons significant in our past. Bulletin 15 wants the property tied to the person’s productive life, the period when they did the things that made them significant, rather than a birthplace or grave. The person has to be individually important, not just a prominent local family.

Example: the Zane Grey House in Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania, listed in 1983 under Criterion B. Grey moved there in 1905 after leaving a dental practice in New York, added a writing study in 1912, and wrote nine novels there in longhand. The nomination argues the house is significant for its association with the author who did most to shape the popular image of the American West, and it keeps the study, original trim and a 1915 painted frieze. The period of significance, 1905 to 1918, matches the years he lived and worked there, which is exactly what Criterion B asks for.

Criterion C: design, construction, or the work of a master

Criterion C is the broadest and the most used. It covers properties that embody the distinctive characteristics of a type, period or method of construction; or represent the work of a master; or possess high artistic value; or form a significant and distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction. That last clause is how most historic districts qualify: the individual houses may be ordinary, but the group is not.

Example: the Lindstrom House in San Diego, listed in 2001 under Criterion C at the state level. It was Cliff May’s second design, built in 1933, and the nomination presents it as an early statement of the California ranch house: a blank facade to the street, a U-plan around a courtyard, rough stucco, exposed redwood beams and tile floors. May was never a licensed architect, which did not stop the nomination from treating him as a master; the argument rests on his influence on American suburban housing and on how clearly this house shows his formative ideas.

A second Criterion C example shows how comparison works. The Colfax Passenger Depot was one of 25 Colonnade-style depots Southern Pacific built; 14 survive, and the nomination notes that similar depots in Lodi and Woodland were altered or moved, leaving Colfax as the only intact example in Placer County. Bulletin 15 says that when evaluating integrity for a rare type, the condition of the other survivors matters.

Criterion D: has yielded or may yield important information

Criterion D covers properties that have yielded, or may be likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history. It is mostly used for archaeological sites, though Bulletin 15 notes it can apply to standing buildings whose fabric can answer research questions. The test is not whether the site is interesting but whether its data can address important questions and whether that information is not available elsewhere.

Example: White and Company’s Goose Lake Stoneware Manufactury near Morris, Illinois, listed in 1998 under Criterion D. The pottery operated from 1855 to 1866 and nothing stands above ground. A 1991 surface collection recovered more than 14,000 artifacts across a site of over 36,000 square meters, and the pattern of kiln furniture, wasters and brick points to workshop areas, kilns and a dump. The nomination’s case is that the site can still tell researchers how an early factory-style pottery, unusual in Illinois, was organized.

Many archaeological listings have restricted addresses; 1,350 listings in our ten-state database are flagged that way, and their pages do not show a location.

The criteria considerations

Some property types are normally excluded and need an extra justification: cemeteries, birthplaces and graves, religious properties, moved buildings, reconstructions, commemorative properties and anything that achieved significance within the past 50 years. Bulletin 15 lists seven exceptions, lettered A through G. Consideration B (moved properties) and G (recent significance) come up most often; the 50-year guideline has its own guide.

Integrity: the seven aspects

Bulletin 15 defines integrity as the ability of a property to convey its significance, and says properties either retain integrity or they do not. There is no score. The seven aspects are:

1. Location is the place where the property was built or the event happened. Moving a building almost always destroys it, which is why Consideration B exists.
2. Design is the combination of elements that create the form, plan, space, structure and style: massing, proportion, the pattern of windows and doors, ornament, and for districts the relationship between buildings and streets.
3. Setting is the physical environment: topography, vegetation, paths and fences, and how the property sits among its neighbors and open space.
4. Materials are the physical elements from the period of significance. Bulletin 15 says a property must retain the key exterior materials from that period, and that a reconstruction or a recent building made to look old does not qualify.
5. Workmanship is the evidence of the craft: tooling, carving, joinery, plain vernacular finishes or elaborate detailing.
6. Feeling is the property’s expression of the aesthetic or historic sense of its period, produced by the physical features taken together.
7. Association is the direct link between the property and the event or person, which survives only if the place is intact enough to convey that relationship.

Feeling and association depend on perception, and Bulletin 15 is explicit that their retention alone is never sufficient to support eligibility.

How integrity is actually assessed

Bulletin 15 lays out four steps: define the essential physical features that make the property what it is; check whether those features are visible enough to convey significance; decide whether comparison with similar properties is needed; and decide which aspects of integrity are vital for this particular property. A house significant for its architecture must keep most of the features that define its style. A site significant for an event must keep its setting. A property under Criterion D is judged on whether its data survive, not on how it looks.

Two consequences trip people up. First, a building whose historic exterior is hidden behind a modern false front or curtain wall will not qualify under A, B or C, though it can be re-evaluated if the covering comes off and the original fabric is intact. Second, interiors matter when the significance lives inside: Bulletin 15 gives the example of a concert hall valued for its auditorium.

The Goleta Depot in California shows how the aspects trade off. Moved in 1981 to a county park, it lost location and setting; it was listed in 2002 anyway because it is the only survivor of eight Southern Pacific depots in Santa Barbara County and keeps its design, materials and workmanship, which is the Consideration B route. Riverview, a 1969 office tower in Toledo, Ohio, shows the opposite balance: the office tower’s interior has lost many finishes, but the nomination rests on the exterior and plaza, which remain largely intact.

Where to go from here

If you think a property meets a criterion and keeps its integrity, the next step is an informal eligibility opinion from your SHPO; our guide to nominating a property explains the sequence. If you are not sure whether it is already listed, use the address lookup. And if you want to see how a professional argues a case, open a few nominations on this site and read Section 8 with the criteria beside you.

General information, not legal or tax advice. Researched from the sources above and drafted with AI assistance; published under the editor's name, corrections welcome. See the editorial policy.