Historic characterisation is described by the Council for British Archaeology as "a way of going beyond intuition to get beneath the skin of a place and look at its essential qualities and character.
The programme is intended to: The results are incorporated within a geographical information system which allows maps to be prepared at the level of detail appropriate to the particular purpose.
Types of landscape are characterised based on the way in which they were formed, their current and earlier land uses and their physical appearance.
Other than the landscape itself, the methodology is largely desk based;[3] sources include aerial photographs as well as current and historic maps.
[4] HLC projects only display one layer at a time, and can be misleading without closer examination combined with some knowledge of landscape history.