The work aims to propose a method to construct the urban cultural symbol system from the perspective of public perception to address the issue of cognition and perception in the process of urban cultural symbolization, as well as to enhance the public awareness of cultural symbols and promote perceptual consensus. With urban cultural resources as the research object, an analysis was conducted on the perceived requirements and preferences of multi-target people toward urban cultural resources. Subsequently, the urban cultural elements were sorted out according to the perceived demands. The evaluation indicators were clearly defined. High-value typical cultural elements were screened by correlation analysis and guided interviews. While the relationship structure of symbolic elements was depicted by visual atlas. On this basis, series design schemes and ecological application strategies were generated. In the investigation of the Yiling cultural symbol system, it was found that the implementation of the symbolic system of "demand integration-factor optimization-visual analysis and presentation" effectively fulfilled the demands of public cultural cognition and emotional identity, therefore facilitating the availability and applicability of the symbolic system. Integrating public perception into the construction of urban cultural symbol systems can promote the perception and empathy of the public to cultural symbols, and help the construction of urban culture. This method is universal in the study of regional cultural symbols, and can enable the systematic sorting of characteristic cultures, cultural recognition, and innovative translation.