HERITAGE LINKS DESTINATION · ITALY
Matera
Where rock, water and human ingenuity shaped a city across time
A UNESCO urban landscape where cave dwellings, rupestrian churches, cisterns and neighbourhoods reveal an extraordinary relationship between people, stone and water.
WORLD HERITAGE
The Sassi and the Park of the Rupestrian Churches
THE DESTINATION
A city carved into stone and continuously reinvented
Caves. Cisterns. Neighbourhoods. A living urban system.
Matera is an ancient urban landscape in Basilicata where architecture, geology and daily life are inseparable. The Sassi developed through the continuous adaptation of natural caves, excavated spaces and built structures.
Homes, churches, workshops, streets, terraces and water systems form a dense urban fabric carved into the calcarenite. Cisterns and channels demonstrate a sophisticated collective response to scarce water and a difficult terrain.
Inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1993, Matera contributes to HERITAGE LINKS by sharing advanced experience in UNESCO-site governance, digital knowledge systems, sustainable tourism, accessibility and cross-border capacity building.
HERITAGE PROFILE
Country
Italy
Region
Basilicata
Heritage focus
Rock-hewn urban landscape and rupestrian churches
Route role
Digital governance, knowledge transfer and shared visitor management
WHY MATERA MATTERS
An ancient urban landscape shaped by adaptation and collective intelligence
Matera brings together architecture, archaeology, water systems, sacred spaces and contemporary urban life in a landscape where heritage is continuously inhabited, managed and reinterpreted.
Rock-Hewn Urban Fabric
Natural caves, excavated rooms and built façades overlap across steep terraces, creating a complex city in which underground and above-ground spaces form a single urban organism.
Water and Rupestrian Systems
Cisterns, channels, courtyards and rupestrian churches reveal how generations transformed geology into infrastructure, sacred space and everyday architecture.
Living City and Community
Residents, public institutions, researchers, cultural organisations and local businesses sustain the relationship between conservation, administration, tourism and daily life.
HERITAGE LINKS IN MATERA
Connecting digital governance, resilience and accessible heritage
Matera contributes to a common Greece–Italy approach by sharing tested methods for UNESCO governance, risk assessment, digital documentation, accessible interpretation and sustainable visitor management.
- Exchange of best practices among UNESCO site managers, public authorities and heritage professionals.
- Risk assessment addressing climate change, overtourism and pressure on the living historic city.
- Georeferenced knowledge, 2D/3D visualisation, digital models and accessible cultural experiences.
- Capacity building, open data, knowledge exchange and participation by local communities.
- Integration into the GR–IT World Heritage Culture Route.
DIGITAL HERITAGE ACTION
From UNESCO governance to shared digital knowledge
Matera’s contribution builds on practical digital-heritage experience developed for the governance of the Sassi and the structured knowledge of its archaeological and rupestrian assets.
Reference experiences such as SHAPE connect planning tools, georeferenced administrative information and 2D/3D WebGIS environments, helping transform fragmented records into a shared system for territorial decision support.
DARHEM extends this approach to archaeological and rupestrian heritage through structured records, interactive mapping and multicriteria analysis. Within HERITAGE LINKS, these methods become transferable knowledge for the GR–IT route.
FROM LOCAL EXPERIENCE TO SHARED METHOD
A living laboratory for the GR–IT route
Matera demonstrates how data models, WebGIS architecture, thematic maps and digital twins can support heritage governance while remaining useful to institutions, professionals, communities and visitors.
Expected contribution
Structured data, georeferenced cultural records, thematic maps, 2D/3D visualisation and a transferable capacity-building method for the partner territories.
A RESPONSIBLE HERITAGE DESTINATION
Protecting a fragile living city while improving access and understanding
SUSTAINABLE TOURISM
Balanced visitor flows
Distributing visits across neighbourhoods, cultural places, seasons and complementary routes can reduce pressure on the most crowded viewpoints while supporting local communities and longer stays.
CLIMATE RESILIENCE
Risk-informed management
Risk assessment, monitoring and professional cooperation support responses to intense rainfall, heat, erosion, moisture and visitor pressure affecting rock-hewn spaces, buildings and public routes.
ACCESSIBLE HERITAGE
Inclusive physical and digital access
Inclusive information, tactile reproductions, 3D models and virtual experiences can make complex or difficult-to-access rupestrian environments understandable to wider audiences.
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In Matera, heritage is not only carved in stone; it is carried by the people who continue to inhabit, study and care for it.
HERITAGE LINKS · PEOPLE AND PLACES
COMMUNITY AND CULTURAL EXCHANGE
A living heritage shared through knowledge, participation and practice
Residents, the public administration, cultural organisations, tourism operators, researchers and heritage professionals all contribute to the long-term care and interpretation of Matera’s historic landscape.
Workshops, seminars and Community of Practice activities create opportunities to share digital methods, visitor-management approaches, local knowledge and accessible ways of interpreting the Sassi and rupestrian heritage.
Young people, cultural ambassadors and cross-border visitors help carry this knowledge forward, strengthening relationships between Basilicata and the partner territories of Greece and Italy.
THE GR–IT WORLD HERITAGE CULTURE ROUTE
Four destinations, one shared journey
Matera joins Corfu, Zagori and Aspromonte in a cross-border itinerary connecting UNESCO heritage, cultural landscapes, communities and responsible travel experiences.
ITALY
Matera
Rock-hewn heritage and an ancient urban landscape.
CONTINUE THE JOURNEY
Stone, memory and innovation. A city that connects past and future.
Explore the connections between places, communities and cultural traditions across Greece and Italy.
Project co-funded by the European Union, European Regional Development Fund (E.R.D.F.) and by National Funds of Greece and Italy.