Catacombs of Paris

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Catacombs of Paris

Catacombes de Paris
Crypt of the Sepulchral Lamp in the Catacombs of Paris
Location within Paris
Established	1810
Location	Place Denfert-Rochereau, 75014 Paris, France
Coordinates	48°50′02″N 2°19′56″E / 48.83389°N 2.33222°E / 48.83389; 2.33222
Type	Historic site
Collections	Paris's former stone quarries, ossuary contents of Paris's pre-18th-century intra muros cemeteries
Visitors	480,000 (2018)[1]
Public transit access	Denfert-Rochereau
Website	www.catacombes.paris.fr/en

The Catacombs of Paris (French: Catacombes de Paris, pronunciation^ⓘ) are underground ossuaries in Paris, France, which hold the remains of more than six million people.^[2] Built to consolidate Paris's ancient stone quarries, they extend south from the Barrière d'Enfer ("Gate of Hell") former city gate; the ossuary was created as part of the effort to eliminate the effects of the city's overflowing cemeteries. Preparation work began shortly after a 1774 series of basement wall collapses around the Holy Innocents' Cemetery added a sense of urgency to the cemetery-eliminating measure, and from 1786, nightly processions of covered wagons transferred remains from most of Paris's cemeteries to a mine shaft opened near the Rue de la Tombe-Issoire. ^[fr]

The ossuary remained largely forgotten until it became a novelty-place for concerts and other private events in the early 19th century; after further renovations and the construction of accesses around Place Denfert-Rochereau, it was opened to public visitation from 1874. Since 2013, the Catacombs have numbered among the fourteen City of Paris Museums managed by Paris Musées. Although the ossuary comprises only a small section of the underground mines of Paris, Parisians often refer to the entire tunnel network as the catacombs.