About AZSITE Public

AZSITE, headquartered at and managed by Arizona State Museum, was officially recognized in 2006 by then Governor Janet Napolitano. By signing Executive Order 2006-3 she made AZSITE the official geographic information system for managing cultural resources in the state of Arizona, and directed all state agencies to submit their cultural resource data to the AZSITE system. Given the sensitive nature of cultural resources, AZSITE has always been secured, allowing access only to those individuals and agencies that had "just cause" to view the data.

AZSITE Public is designed to provide an overview of currently recorded cultural resource density within the state, excluding tribal lands, at the section level (one square mile). Users can log in and, through a series of tools, move to a specific location to display a color-coded grid of the one-square-mile sections. Using an “identify” tool, users can then click on each section in the grid and it will display the percentage of that section which has been surveyed and the percentage of those areas that have been recorded as cultural resources. The information is updated every time new data is uploaded into the main AZSITE database.

This will quickly provide users with a broad overview of the potential cultural resource impact that may occur during land development without providing specific location information to culturally sensitive data. It may be useful for preliminary planning purposes, however it does not constitute sufficient research and documentation to satisfy Federal Section 106 or State Historic Preservation Act compliance. 

In the future, AZSITE Public will display historic canal locations, National Landmark locations, and other such data of interest to the general public. Still, no data from within officially recognized Tribal lands will be included.

AZSITE Public is the direct result of the hard work and foresight of the AZSITE Board: Arizona State Museum, Museum of Northern Arizona, State Historic Preservation Office, and Arizona State University. Funding for portions of AZSITE Public was provided by Arizona State Parks. The development of the user-friendly, public portal would not have been possible without the geospatial expertise of the Institute of Social Science Research at Arizona State University.

For more information, email Rick Karl, AZSITE administrator at Arizona State Museum, or phone (520) 621-1271.

This icon indicates link opens in a new window