The historic city is a complex structure resulting from a series of urban generation processes that can be analyzed and understood and which lead to an anisotropic structure where very different formal spaces coexist. We hold the thesis that this division of fields based on typological predominance can be interpreted as chromatic predominance fields. The existence of a significant number of analogous typologies in every field, meeting common chromatic and,formal criteria, characterizes an area from a formal point of view. Therefore, this chromatic characterization is a heritage value which must be incorporated into urban restoration processes, since its destruction implies the loss of formal coherence in a historic city. This work starts from various research studies developed by the editing team in several historic cities, and this shows the validity and universality of the conclusions reached. The methodology described below, has been put into practice in Spanish cities, and other cities belonging to diverse geographic areas (i.e., Havana, Cuba). It can be shown that while the predominant chromatic ranges vary among cities belonging to different cultures, the chromatic structure of urban spaces follows similar patterns. (C) 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 34, 253-265, 2009; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/col.20491