Urban branding has become an influential mechanism through which cities construct identity, shape public perception, communicate cultural distinctiveness, and guide urban transformation and place-based development. In heritage contexts, its significance extends beyond promotion by supporting the continuity, recognition, and positioning of historic places. Yet existing research has focused on formal heritage districts and visual representation, offering limited explanation of how lived historic environments sustain identity and develop a foundation for heritage-based urban branding through locally embedded socio-spatial practices. This study examines how the historic area surrounding the Mosque of Sultan al-Ashraf Qaytbay within Cairo’s City of the Dead maintains a coherent heritage identity through the interaction of architectural assets, craft production, market exchange, adaptive reuse, cultural activities, place perception, and everyday community practices. It develops a domain-based analytical framework comprising five interrelated domains: heritage asset readiness, cultural activation, place perception, emergent branding outputs, and governance and institutional mediation. The framework is applied through an interpretive spatial-observational case study based on repeated site visits, structured observation, spatial mapping, and photographic documentation. Findings show that craft production, everyday exchange, adaptive reuse, and community-based activities sustain heritage identity, collective memory, and experiential continuity. Workshops and bazaars form an interconnected production–exchange system, while galleries and cultural spaces strengthen interpretation and public engagement. However, fragmented digital visibility, weak narrative coordination, and limited institutional mediation constrain the translation of these assets into coherent branding outcomes. The study therefore distinguishes heritage identity from branding formation and offers a qualitative diagnostic framework for identifying domain alignment and misalignment, supporting context-sensitive approaches to urban transformation, heritage management, and place-based development.

The value of heritage buildings and their surroundings has developed due to the change of the first functional purpose for which they were built. Many old heritage areas as well as the urban surroundings of the old Seat of Government such as Salah El-Din Citadel in Cairo suffer from neglect and increasing deterioration of its urban settings. The study aims to formulate an integrated urban strategy to help conservation of the historic seats of government buildings and their surroundings to adapt with new functions and developed land use. The selected case of the study is Salah El-Din square in Historic Cairo. To attain its aims, the study analyzes three building types in the study zone that need conservation and reuse. The paper develops an approach to track and assess causes and consequences. It explores the prospective scenarios of heritage restoration and appropriating new functions that ensure sustainable conservation of the site.