Although the historic urban landscape (HUL) approach has been highly focused on values connecting conservation and development, contextualising the approach in relation to local heritage discourses and the dynamics of heritage governance still requires more adaptive assessment tools. Mrauk-U in Rakhine State, Myanmar, was selected as a case study. Through the method of participatory historical map translation (PHMT), the spatial evolution of the city was reproduced to identify the key elements of the landscape structure as urban heritage. These elements were converted into space vector layers in the urban geographical information system (GIS) and underwent a three-step assessment using the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) method to visualise the morphological patterns of their heritage value, availability and vulnerability. The results indicated that a holistic conservation strategy should be adopted to build a dynamic heritage management framework and that priority should be given to solving military conflict and preventing flood.

The middle and lower Ganges Valley constitute an important part of the Asian economic and cultural corridor. Multicultural exchanges have had a profound impact on the development of historic cities and towns in the region. Considering the towns and cities of the middle and lower Ganges Valley from the 16th to the mid-18th century, this paper integrates the network theory and the centrifugal and centripetal force theory to explain how factors and forces have driven the spatial evolution of the regional urban system. By extracting spatiotemporal data from multiple sources, using the historical map translation method and spatial calculations based on GIS (Geographical Information System), the spatial pattern evolution of the city networks in this historical period is analyzed. The results show that centripetal and centrifugal forces that are generated by different driving factors combined to produce city networks in the middle and lower Ganges Valley from the 16th to the mid-18th century, forming a polycentric “axis network” spatial pattern with a stable and unified overall structure and dynamic and diverse local structures. The paper also argues that constant cultural and socioeconomic communication between the middle and lower Ganges Valley and the East is the key reason for the continuous expansion of the network.