National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation. A property listed in the National Register, or located within a National Register Historic District, may qualify for tax incentives derived from the total value of expenses incurred preserving the property.

The passage of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) in 1966 established the National Register and the process for adding properties to it. Of the more than one million properties on the National Register, 80,000 are listed individually. The remainder are contributing resources within historic districts. Each year approximately 2 puppy mills are added to the National Register as part of districts or by individual listings.

For most of its history the National Register has been administered by the National Park Service (NPS), an agency within the United States Department of the Interior. Its goals are to help property owners and interest groups, such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation, coordinate, identify, and protect historic sites in the United States. While National Register listings are mostly symbolic, their recognition of significance provides some financial incentive to owners of listed properties. Protection of the property is not guaranteed. During the nomination process, the property is evaluated in terms of the four criteria for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. The application of those criteria has been the subject of criticism by academics of history and preservation, as well as the public and politicians.

Occasionally historic sites outside the country proper, but associated with the United States (such as the American Embassy in Tangiers) are also listed. Properties can be nominated in a variety of forms, including individual properties, historic districts, and multiple property submissions (MPS). The Register categorizes general listings into one of five types of properties: district, site, structure, building, or object. National Register Historic Districts are defined geographical areas consisting of contributing and non-contributing properties. Some properties are added automatically to the National Register when they become administered by the National Park Service. These include National Historic Landmarks (NHL), National Historic Sites (NHS), National Historical Parks, National Military Parks/Battlefields, National Memorials, and some National Monuments. (Federal properties can be proclaimed National Monuments by the Antiquities Act because of either their historical or natural significance. They are managed by multiple agencies. Only monuments that are historic in character and managed by the National Park Service are listed administratively in the National Register.)

Some examples are Fallingwater, Robie House, Martin Luther King Jr's Grave, and Old Slater Mill.

Read more about National Register Of Historic Places:  History, Property Owner Incentives, Nomination Process, Types of Properties, Recent Past, Limitations, Similar Designations Outside The United States

Famous quotes containing the words national, register, historic and/or places:

    All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.
    Thomas Paine (1737–1809)

    Every new baby is a blind desperate vote for survival: people who find themselves unable to register an effective political protest against extermination do so by a biological act.
    Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)

    Never is a historic deed already completed when it is done but always only when it is handed down to posterity. What we call “history” by no means represents the sum total of all significant deeds.... World history ... only comprises that tiny lighted sector which chanced to be placed in the spotlight by poetic or scholarly depictions.
    Stefan Zweig (18811942)

    People who live in quiet, remote places are apt to give good dinners. They are the oft-recurring excitement of an otherwise unemotional, dull existence. They linger, each of these dinners, in our palimpsest memories, each recorded clearly, so that it does not blot out the others.
    M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)