Champaner-Pavagadh,  47 kilometers northeast of Vadodara in Gujarat, is a dramatic and magnificent site with many layers of history accumulated over 1,200 years in its cultural landscape. The site is immense, spreading over six kilometers, and covers the partially buried fifteenth-century Islamic capital city of Champaner and the sacred hill, Pavagadh, a regional pilgrim center to the Hindus and Jains. Small communities live amidst ruins in Champaner, farming and grazing the available land and on plateaus of Pavagadh hill, catering to the heavy pilgrim traffic. It is therefore a ‘living’ heritage site and is the Government of India’s official nomination for World Heritage Status in 2004. Based on two site visits and design workshops between 2001-3, a team of faculty and students from the Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, together with Heritage Trust, Baroda, have proposed developing the site as an Archaeological Park and a Cultural Sanctuary. With public and private support, these conservation measures and design interventions will help to interpret the site for the present generation and preserve it for the future.