Outstanding heritage sites condense issues pertaining to economic development, financial management, governance, appropriation and preservation, affecting the territories which they are part of. These tensions, given free rein, would undermine the purpose served by the sites as well as their sustainability. In this context and after the analysis stage, the publication lays down the necessary conditions for these remarkable sites to constitute resources for the territories hosting them, and for these territories to make best use of their capacity for action in favour of heritage properties. By combining several disciplinary perspectives and empirical analyses, con-ducted both at the national level and as close as possible to the eleven areas cho-sen in France and abroad, the authors look at the problems of territories hosting outstanding heritage sites (in particular those featuring on the UNESCO world heritage list or those recognised under the Grands Sites de France Network) with a renewed perspective. Finally, these conditions of outstandingness also shed light on the future of all the so-called ordinary territories.