The research deals with the concept of competitive cities and the most important indicators and pillars, specifically, cultural heritage policy as a main object to achieve competitiveness. The research problem is the paucity of importance to investing in the cultural heritage competitive advantage in some cities. The research proposal is that investing in cultural heritage as a competitive advantage increases the prosperity of the city.

The article deals with Samarra city in Iraq as a case study as one of the unique cities in the world. It was appointed by ICOMOS on the World Heritage List. Starting with a review of the most important cultural heritage features and the main obstacles and challenges that faced investors. After that conducting a questionnaire to the experienced people in Samarra to know their opinion about the potential competitiveness. From the survey field and the questionnaire results, a quadratic analysis matrix (SWOT) was conducted by determined the main strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

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