A built object has local landmark protection when it has secure legal protection from alteration or destruction from its municipality, township, or other local government. This applies to buildings and structures that are accorded individual protection by law; if they are protected merely as parts of a larger group of structures, they should be listed as parts of a landmark district.

The local government protects the object individually. Protection arising only from membership in a larger district has the separate landmark-district meaning.

The source of designation distinguishes local protection from national protection. The same structure can have individual protection at more than one government level.