page_title: Catacombs of Paris
section_title: Visits
hierarchical_section_title: Catacombs of Paris / Visits
caption_attribution_description: English: Plan of the Catacombes, drawn by the IGC (Inspection Générale des Carrières) in 1857.
context_page_description: The Catacombs of Paris are underground ossuaries in Paris, France, which hold the remains of more than six million people in a small part of a tunnel network built to consolidate Paris' ancient stone quarries. Extending south from the Barrière d'Enfer former city gate, this ossuary was created as part of the effort to eliminate the city's overflowing cemeteries. Preparation work began not long after a 1774 series of gruesome Saint Innocents-cemetery-quarter basement wall collapses added a sense of urgency to the cemetery-eliminating measure, and from 1786, nightly processions of covered wagons transferred remains from most of Paris' cemeteries to a mine shaft opened near the Rue de la Tombe-Issoire.
  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 open to public visitation from 1874. Since 2013, the Catacombs number among the 14 City of Paris Museums managed by Paris Musées.
context_section_description: The Catacombs of Paris became a curiosity for more privileged Parisians from their creation, an early visitor being the Count of Artois (later Charles X of France) during 1787. Public visits began after its renovation into a proper ossuary and the 1814 – 1815 war. First allowed only a few times a year with the permission of an authorized mines inspector, but later more frequently and permitted by any mine overseer, a flow of visitors degraded the ossuary to a point where the permission-only rule was restored from 1830, and the catacombs were closed completely from 1833 because of church opposition to exposing human remains to public display. Open again for four visits a year from 1850, public demand caused the government to allow monthly visits from 1867, bi-weekly visits on the first and third Saturday of each month from 1874 (with an extra opening for the November 1 toussaint holiday), and weekly visits during the 1878, 1889 (the most visitors yet that year) and 1900 World's Fair Expositions. Later they opened for regular daily visits. After an incident of vandalism, the Catacombs were closed to the public during September 2009 and reopened on 19 December of the same year. Catacombs of Paris have Resumed On June 16, 2020 with new rules and guidelines for visitors.They have also adopted strict practices to monitor crowd numbers and have made it obligatory to wear masks.
caption: Plan of the visitable Catacombes, drawn by the IGC (Inspection Générale des Carrières) during 1858.
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