Creating Immovable Cultural Heritage Inventories with Geographical Information Technologies: A Case Study of the Nizam and Maden Neighborhoods on Büyükada

With its history, diverse structure, and natural heritage, the Municipality of Adalar stands as one of the best-preserved areas in Istanbul. It is a rare space where various religions, languages, and cultures coexist harmoniously. With the introduction of the first regular steam ferry services to the Princes' Islands in 1846, the urban texture began to take shape, marking the initiation of social life development. This study aims to design a geodatabase and create a cultural route for healthily maintaining the protection factor for buildings registered as immovable cultural assets in the Nizam and Maden neighborhoods on B & uuml;y & uuml;kada [The Big Island]. The study uses the geodatabase to create inventory records and determine a cultural path encompassing the routes of buildings exemplifying both tangible and intangible cultural heritage and then visualizes the results with a web-based geographic information systems (GIS) application. The study found 803 of the 2,000 buildings on B & uuml;y & uuml;kada to be registered as immovable cultural heritage and observed these buildings to have largely maintained their original architectural features and functional purposes. The Municipality of Adalar is one of the areas where the understanding of architectural conservation can be most successfully maintained throughout Istanbul. The study proposes a conservation and monitoring system based on GIS technologies for transferring and protecting to future generations the historically significant buildings that reflect a specific era and that contribute to Istanbul's identity.