Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS)

2023 HALS Challenge: Working Landscapes

The Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS) was created in 2000 to document our country’s significant landscapes. Much progress has been made in identifying cultural landscapes but more work is needed to document these designed and vernacular places.

For the 14th annual HALS Challenge competition, we invite you to document Working Landscapes. Historic “working” or “productive” landscapes may be agricultural or industrial and unique or traditional. Some topical working landscapes convey water for irrigation or provide flood control. Please focus your HALS report on the landscape as a whole and not on a building or structure alone. For this theme, the HAER History Guidelines (pdf) may be helpful along with the HALS History Guidelines (pdf).

The HALS Short Format History guidelines and digital template may be downloaded from the National Park Service’s HALS website. Short format histories should be submitted by July 31, 2023.

Good luck and thank you for helping to preserve American landscapes!

For further information contact:

HALS Landscape Architect Chris Stevens  (chris_stevens@nps.gov) or Potomac Chapter HALS Liaison Daniel Straub (dnstraub@gmail.com).