Mount Auburn Cemetery
Monuments, ponds, wooded hills, horticultural collections, bird habitat, and views from Washington Tower make burial landscape and public garden inseparable.
Artwork inspired by Winslow Homer
Monuments, ponds, wooded hills, horticultural collections, bird habitat, and views from Washington Tower make burial landscape and public garden inseparable. Founded in 1831, Mount Auburn changed how Americans imagined cemeteries and urban open space. Art, botany, mourning, reform, migration, and conservation accumulate across a working burial ground.
Use a thematic map rather than hunting only famous names. Walk quietly, yield to services, add Consecration Dell or Halcyon Lake, and climb the tower only when open. Cycling, pets, picnicking, jogging, and photography are governed by cemetery rules. Slopes and distances can surprise visitors. Seasonal birds and flowering trees keep the memorial landscape visibly alive.
- Founded
- 1831
- Area
- 175 acres
- Collection
- More than 5,000 trees
Quick guide
- Choose a theme
- Art, trees, birds, and biography offer different routes.
- Respect active mourning
- This remains a working cemetery.
Know before you go
- Choose a theme
- Art, trees, birds, and biography offer different routes.
- Respect active mourning
- This remains a working cemetery.
- Read the landform
- Paths use hills to stage memory.
- Climb when open
- Washington Tower restores geographic context.
Good to know
Cycling, pets, picnicking, jogging, and photography are governed by cemetery rules. Slopes and distances can surprise visitors.
Notice these
- Washington Tower
- Consecration Dell
- Sphinx monument