The Catacombs of Paris are a municipal ossuary inside former limestone quarries beneath the city. Their passages reveal how a public health crisis, urban geology, and changing ideas about death produced one of Paris’s most unusual heritage sites.
Quick facts
- The first bone transfers took place from 1785 to 1787.
- The site was consecrated as the Paris Municipal Ossuary on April 7, 1786.
- The Catacombs opened to the public by appointment in 1809.
More places in Paris
59 Rivoli
59 Rivoli is an artist-run building on Rue de Rivoli, born from a 1999 occupation of a vacant Haussmann-era property. The City of Paris later secured its artistic use, turning a contested workspace into a public-facing site for studios and exhibitions.
Arc de Triomphe
The Arc de Triomphe was commissioned by Napoleon in 1806 to honor the Grande Armée, but political upheaval stretched construction across three decades. Its location makes it a monument and hub of avenues structuring western Paris.
Arènes de Lutèce
The Arènes de Lutèce is a Gallo-Roman mixed-use amphitheatre with both an arena and a stage. Its unusual layout accommodated different kinds of performance, and its rediscovery during nineteenth-century street works sparked a campaign to preserve the remains.
Canal Saint-Martin
Cast-iron footbridges and working locks punctuate this canal’s route through northeastern Paris. Built to improve water supply and navigation, Canal Saint-Martin nearly became an urban expressway in the 1960s, but public opposition helped preserve the waterway.
Centre Pompidou
Centre Pompidou turns its structure outward, exposing pipes, escalators, and circulation on the façade. Conceived as a multidisciplinary cultural center, it challenged the idea that a museum should hide the systems that make it work.
Champ de Mars
The Champ de Mars stretches between the Eiffel Tower and the École Militaire as a broad public lawn once used for military exercises. Later, world fairs and civic gatherings turned the open ground into a stage for national display.