Catacombes de Paris

The Catacombes de Paris, a term used to refer to the municipal ossuary, were originally part of the ancient underground quarries located in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, connected by inspection galleries. They were transformed into a municipal ossuary at the end of the 18th century with the transfer of the remains of approximately six million individuals, evacuated from various Parisian cemeteries until 1861 for reasons of public health. They then took on the misleading name of “catacombs,” by analogy with the underground necropolises of ancient Rome, although they never officially served as a burial site.

Approximately 1.7 km in length and open to visitors, located twenty metres below the surface, they are officially visited by around 500,000 visitors per year (2015 figures) from Place Denfert-Rochereau and constitute a museum of the City of Paris. This part open to the public represents only a tiny fraction (approximately 0.5%) of the vast underground quarries of Paris, which extend under several arrondissements of the capital. There are also other underground ossuaries in Paris, inaccessible to the public.