Montparnasse Cemetery
The Left Bank has buried its philosophers, artists, and war dead here since 1824 — all 35,000 of them.
Coming soon on iOS — be first to walk Paris offline.
Opened 25 July 1824 as Le Cimetière du Sud, this 47-acre ground was built to serve Left Bank residents who had previously been buried in Vaugirard and the Sainte-Catherine cemetery. It sits alongside Père Lachaise and Montmartre as one of three cemeteries that replaced Paris's banned inner-city burial grounds. Around 1,000 people are still buried here every year.
What to look for
- Tombs commemorating soldiers and civilians who died during the Franco-Prussian War siege of Paris (1870-1871) and the Paris Commune (1871)
- The breadth of the 35,000 graves — political figures, philosophers, artists, actors, and writers occupy the same ground
- The scale itself: 19 hectares make this the second-largest cemetery in Paris, easy to get turned around in without a map
Entry is free; pick up a grave map at the entrance — 19 hectares is large enough to lose an hour without one.
Montparnasse Cemetery is one of 39 sights worth the detour in Paris, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Paris pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Paris
- Eiffel TowerThe 300-metre iron tower Parisian artists petitioned against before it was even finished.
- Louvre MuseumThe world's most-visited museum lives inside a 12th-century fortress that became a royal palace.
- Notre-Dame de ParisThe spire fell on live TV in April 2019; since December 2024 you can walk back inside.
- Musée d'OrsayVan Gogh and Monet hung inside a Beaux-Arts station built for the Paris–Orléans railway.
- Champs-ÉlyséesA single 1.9-km straight line runs from the Concorde obelisk to the Arc de Triomphe — Paris's ceremonial spine on the Axe historique.
- Place de la BastilleThe prison that lit a revolution is gone — and the mob that stormed it on 14 July 1789 came for gunpowder, not the seven forgotten men inside.