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Planning of historic cities in Asia is typically characterised as mixed land use with a hierarchy of streets and open spaces. While the morphology of the built environment is archetypal of the regional context, addressing the concern of thermal comfort essentially through passive systems using locally available resources. Further, most of these cities, centuries old, are vivid example of resilience to change with time, technology and developmental pressures. Also, the majority of such cities are in Asia. These old neighbourhoods are a huge built resource, in sync with locally available materials and indigenous technology, and thus in harmony with the environment; also recognised for their traditional style by the tourism sector. In this paper, the parameters of morphology of these built environments, contextual for arid zones, are spelt out. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.