Tombe Mme YING

The cemetery you are approaching is the final resting place for over one million people, making it the largest active cemetery in all of France. When it opened in eighteen eighty-six, it was designed as an extra-muros burial ground, meaning it sits outside the traditional limits of Paris to accommodate the growing population of the capital. The grounds span over one hundred hectares and contain roughly one hundred and forty-five thousand individual graves, creating a vast, quiet landscape of stone and greenery just on the edge of the city. Among the thousands of rows, you will find a diverse array of history, from the graves of soldiers who served in the first world war to the final resting places of renowned artists and intellectuals. It serves as a profound monument to the sheer scale of the population that has passed through Paris over the last century and a half.