Cemeteries, mausoleums and burial places in France
Catacombs of Paris
The origin of the Paris Catacombs, which it would be better to call “Municipal Ossuary”, goes back to the end of the 18th century. The Cemetery of the Innocents (near Saint-Eustache, in the area of Les Halles) had been in use for nearly ten centuries and had become a source of infection for the inhabitants of the locality. After numerous complaints, the Council of State decided, on November 9th 1785, to prohib ...
Founded: 1786 |
Location:
Paris, France
Madeleine Dolmen
Dolmen de la Madeleine is an isolated dolmen located in a private field on the outskirts of the town of Gennes. It was probably built between 5 000-2 000 BC. There are a number of these sites in the area - but this one is said to be the largest. Like many of the larger dolmens, it has subsequently been re-used, in this case to house a bread oven. Although the bread oven is no longer in use as the dolmen is now a classifie ...
Founded: 5000-2000 BC |
Location:
Gennes, France
Cimetière du Château
The graveyard at Cimetière du Château, which was founded in 1783, has 2,800 graves, where some of Nice"s most famous people lie buried. The cemetery stands on the old citadel of Nice. Even today, some sections of the massive walls of the ancient fortress remain. The fortress, which was built in the 16th century, was once one of the most secure strongholds in France. The cemetery is as much popular for its function ...
Founded: 1783 |
Location:
Nice, France
Père Lachaise Cemetery
Père Lachaise Cemetery is the largest cemetery in Paris city. The cemetery takes its name from the confessor to Louis XIV, Père François de la Chaise (1624–1709), who lived in the Jesuit house rebuilt in 1682 on the site of the chapel. The property, situated on the hillside from which the king watched skirmishing between the Condé and Turenne during the Fronde, was bought by the city in 1 ...
Founded: 1804 |
Location:
Paris, France
Montparnasse Cemetery
Montparnasse Cemetery was created from three farms in 1824. Cemeteries had been banned from Paris since the closure, owing to health concerns, of the Cimetière des Innocents in 1786. Several new cemeteries outside the precincts of the capital replaced all the internal Parisian ones in the early 19th century: Montmartre Cemetery in the north, Père Lachaise Cemetery in the east, and Montparnasse Cemetery in th ...
Founded: 1824 |
Location:
Paris, France
La Cambe War Cemetery
La Cambe military war grave cemetery contains of 21,000 German military personnel of World War II. It is maintained and managed by the German War Graves Commission. La Cambe was originally the site of a battlefield cemetery, established by the United States Army Graves Registration Service during the war, where American and German soldiers, sailors and airmen were buried in two adjacent fields. After the war had ended on ...
Founded: 1944 |
Location:
La Cambe, France
Bayeux War Cemetery
The Bayeux War Cemetery is the largest Second World War cemetery of Commonwealth soldiers in France. The cemetery contains 4,648 burials, mostly of the Invasion of Normandy. Opposite this cemetery stands the Bayeux Memorial which commemorates 1,808 casualties of the Commonwealth forces who died in Normandy and have no known grave. The cemetery grounds were assigned to the United Kingdom in perpetuity by France in recogni ...
Founded: 1944 |
Location:
Bayeux, France
The Royal Chapel of Dreux
The Royal Chapel of Dreux (Chapelle royale de Dreux) is the traditional burial place of members of the House of Orléans. In the 1770s, the Duke of Penthièvre was one of the greatest land owner in France prior to the French Revolution. In 1775, the lands of the county of Dreux had been given to the Penthièvre by his cousin King Louis XVI. In 1783, the Duke sold his domain of Rambouillet to Louis XVI. ...
Founded: 1816 |
Location:
Dreux, France
Douaumont Ossuary
The Douaumont ossuary is a memorial containing the remains of soldiers who died on the battlefield during the Battle of Verdun in World War I. During the 300 days of the Battle of Verdun (1916) approximately 230,000 men died out here. The battle became known in German as Die Hölle von Verdun (The Hell of Verdun), or in French as L"Enfer de Verdun, and was conducted on a battlefield covering less than 20 square kilo ...
Founded: 1916 |
Location:
Douaumont, France
American Cemetery and Memorial
On June 8, 1944, the U.S. First Army established the temporary cemetery, the first American cemetery on European soil in World War II. After the war, the present-day cemetery was established a short distance to the east of the original site. Like all other overseas American cemeteries in France for World War I and II, France has granted the United States a special, perpetual concession to the land occupied by the cemetery ...
Founded: 1944 |
Location:
Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer, France
Notre Dame de Lorette
Notre Dame de Lorette, also known as Ablain St.-Nazaire French Military Cemetery, is the world"s largest French military cemetery. It is the name of a ridge, basilica, and French national cemetery northwest of Arras at the village of Ablain-Saint-Nazaire. The high point of the hump-backed ridge stands 165 metres high and - with Vimy Ridge - utterly dominates the otherwise flat Douai plain and the town of Arras. The ...
Founded: 1914 |
Location:
Ablain-Saint-Nazaire, France
Faubourg d'Amiens Cemetery
The French handed over Arras to Commonwealth forces in the spring of 1916 during the World War I and the system of tunnels upon which the town is built were used and developed in preparation for the major offensive planned for April 1917. The Commonwealth section of the Faubourg d"Amiens Cemetery was begun in March 1916, behind the French military cemetery established earlier. It continued to be used by field ambulan ...
Founded: 1916 |
Location:
Arras, France
St. Michel Tumulus
The Tumulus of St. Michel is a megalithic grave mound, located east of Carnac. The 125m long, 60m wide and 10m high mound is the largest grave mound in continental Europe. The age of the monument, and the chronology of the construction of the central burial-chambers and outlying dolmen have been the subject of much speculation. Ancient samples were radiocarbon dated, but the results were too disparate to be significant. R ...
Founded: 4500 BC |
Location:
Carnac, France
Ranville War Cemetery
Ranville was the first village to be liberated in France when the bridge over the Caen Canal was captured intact in the early hours of 6 June, 1944 by troops of the 6th Airborne Division, who were landed nearby by parachute and glider. Many of the division"s casualties are buried in Ranville War Cemetery and the adjoining churchyard. The cemetery contains 2,235 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War, 97 of them ...
Founded: 1944 |
Location:
Ranville, France
Dolmen de Bagneux
The famous Dolmen in Bagneux is probably one of the most majestic French dolmens and the largest of the 4,500 dolmens spread out on about 60 French departments.The overall length of this dolmen is over 23 meters (75 feet) and its chamber is over 18 meters (60 feet) long. As all dolmens, the 'Great Covered stone" in Bagneux, was a large chamber tomb which must have contained a great number of prehistoric skeletons during t ...
Founded: 4000-2000 BC |
Location:
Saumur, France
Bény-sur-Mer War Cemetery
Bény-sur-Mer was created as a permanent resting place for Canadian soldiers who had been temporarily interred in smaller plots close to where they fell. As is usual for war cemeteries or monuments, France granted Canada a perpetual concession to the land occupied by the cemetery. The graves contain soldiers from the Canadian 3rd Division and 15 Airmen killed in the Battle of Normandy. The cemetery also includes fou ...
Founded: 1944 |
Location:
Reviers, France
St. Desir-de-Lisieux War Cemetery
The British grave service buried 3697 German casualties on this tarrein in St. Desir-de-Lisieux and made it a German War Cemetery (Kriegsgräberstätte). It is known as one of the cemeteries where Germen casualties who were found nowadays can be buried.
Founded: 1944 |
Location:
St. Desir-de-Lisieux, France
Bretteville-sur-Laize War Cemetery
Bretteville-sur-Laize was created as a permanent resting place for Canadian soldiers who had been temporarily buried in smaller plots close to where they fell. At the time of the cemetery's creation, France granted Canada a perpetual concession to the land occupied by the cemetery. The graves contain 2793 soldiers from the 2nd Canadian Corps, 91 of them unknown, and 79 RCAF airmen killed in the Battle of Normandy. A larg ...
Founded: 1944 |
Location:
Cintheaux, France
Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery and Memorial
The Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery and Memorial is a 52.8 ha World War I cemetery in France. The cemetery contains the largest number of American military dead in Europe (14,246), most of whom lost their lives during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive and were buried there. The cemetery consists of eight sections behind a large central reflection pool. Beyond the grave sections is a chapel which is decorated with stained glass ...
Founded: 1918 |
Location:
Romagne-sous-Montfaucon, France
St. Manvieu War Cemetery
Those buried in St. Manvieu War Cemetery died for the most part in the fluctuating battles from mid June to the end of July 1944, in the region between Tilly-sur-Seulles and Caen. The cemetery contains 1,627 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War, 49 of them unidentified. There are also 555 German burials.The cemetery was designed by Philip Hepworth.
Founded: 1944 |
Location:
Cheux, France