The Qing tombs.

The buildings, sculptures and interior decoration of the Ming Tombs in Beijing are the highlights of 5,000 years of Chinese burial practice. They contain the best elements of the culture of Central and North China. However, the following dynasty, the Qing (1644-1912), also left magnificent imperial mausoleums. They are significant examples of the architecture and culture of the Manchus, a nomadic tribe from Northeast China which overthrew the Ming dynasty.

There are two main groups, the Eastern Qing Tombs and the Western Qing Tombs. The Eastern Qing Tombs are located at Zunhua, 125 kilometres northeast of Beijing. They are the largest, most complete and best preserved extant mausoleum complex in China. The Western Qing Tombs are located some 140 kilometers southwest of Beijing in Yi County, Hebei Province.

There are four royal mausoleums which are the last resting places of four emperors along with their empresses, imperial concubines, princes and princesses. Because both groups of tombs are located far from Bejiing they are not often visited by foreigners, which is in itself a good reason to go.

Another great burial precinct in Kolkata.

History buffs visiting Kolkata can find many historic graves outside the South Park Street Cemetery. The city’s original churches and their graveyards, notably St. John’s churchyard, are the last resting places of the city’s pioneers, including Job Charnock, who founded Calcutta in 1690.

Another great burial precinct in London.

Westminster Abbey is not the only great burial place in London. Taphophiles should check out Highgate Cemetery, a huge forested precinct in north London that is the last resting place of many illustrious people, notably Michael Faraday, George Eliot, Malcolm McLaren, Diane Cilento and that famous socio-economic ideologue Karl Marx.

Another great burial precinct in Paris.

Space and content balance meant that in Great Burial Places I could only cover three sites in Paris: Père Lachaise Cemetery, the Pantheon and the Catacombs. But there is one more burial precinct that is well worth a visit. The Basilica of Saint Denis, a beautiful Romanesque abbey church in the north of Paris, was the last resting place of all but three of the kings of France. It was ransacked during the French Revolution and all the bodies buried there were dug up and destroyed, but the building is a magnificent example of medieval French architecture and there have been several royal burials and transfers of royal remains from elsewhere since the Revolution.