The Heritage & Cultural Assets industry is organized into distinct segments that group related disciplines, professions, institutions, organizations, and business activities within the larger field. Each segment represents a different way cultural, historical, and place based resources are preserved, researched, interpreted, managed, activated, and shared with the public, while also showing how stewardship, research, education, tourism, operations, and community engagement connect across the industry. These segments include Museum Curation & Collections Management, Historic Preservation, Archives & Archival Science, Cultural Heritage Interpretation, Public History, Heritage Tourism Development, Cultural Festival & Tradition Stewardship, Archaeology & Cultural Resource Management, and Heritage Site Operations & Management.

Each segment is also connected to relevant North American Industry Classification System, or NAICS, codes. NAICS is the standard system used by federal statistical agencies to classify businesses and economic activity by industry. Because Heritage & Cultural Assets includes overlapping disciplines and professionals working across museums, archives, historic sites, public agencies, nonprofit institutions, consulting practices, tourism, education, research, and project based environments, no single NAICS code captures the full scope of the industry. The codes identified here provide the closest available classifications for understanding where these activities appear within existing economic data.

Breaking the industry into segments, disciplines, and corresponding NAICS classifications creates a clearer framework for understanding how Heritage & Cultural Assets functions as an economic sector. It also makes it possible to identify shared and segment specific needs, examine workforce, funding, infrastructure, and institutional conditions, and better understand the economic and cultural role of each area in greater detail.