A quantitative spatial methodology for delimiting historical centers - an application in Guarda, Portugal

A historical center can be defined as the oldest part of a city where a significant part of the building stock dates back to the early stages of urban growth. Historical centers often contain special urban fabrics with unique, historic, social and cultural identity. Owing to this, they have been subject to special urban planning interventions in order not only to protect the existing urban fabric and its originality, but also to revert depopulation and built deterioration processes aiming to make these old centers attractive and functional again. However, in the inter-urban domain, there is a deficit of spatial planning research, and the delimitation of historical centers is a topic that has been under explored. This paper describes a morphological approach for delimiting the historical center of Guarda, Portugal. Methodologically, the work uses building stock-age data from eight periods between