<p>This essay discusses a conception of cultural capital based on profiles of cultural identity with a territorial focus. It proposes an operational method for constructing a composite index that represents the stock of cultural capital, regardless of the derived flow of goods and services and, therefore, of the size of the commercial cultural sector. The synthetic cultural capital index aims to be comprehensive in its composition and exhaustive in its territorial coverage, so that it can be readily applied in other empirical studies that seek to measure the economic impact of cultural capital, its contribution to development, and its relationships with other economic variables. It also seeks to analyse patterns of geographical distribution and spatial disparities.</p>