The city of Dortmund has published a digital cemetery map for its 32 municipal cemeteries on the Internet. This is the city’s response to the challenges associated with managing over 200,000 graves. The new system is designed to make it easier for visitors and cemetery workers to access grave information.
Guidance for relatives and visitors
Those who wish to visit a grave often only know the name of the deceased. The
exact location of the grave in the cemetery is not always known to visitors. The
previous method of searching on site is very time-consuming, especially in large cemeteries. Relatives
often have to contact the cemetery administration, which is not always
immediately available—for example, on weekends or holidays.
The digital cemetery map offers concrete support here. After entering the
name of a deceased person, the system displays the exact location of the grave on
the map. GPS positioning also makes it possible to compare your own location
with the destination point and thus find the grave you are looking for directly.
Work support for the trades
The new system also makes life much easier for those working in the cemetery, such as undertakers, stonemasons, and
cemetery gardeners. Every day, they have to
visit different gravesites—whether for funeral services, maintenance work, setting
gravestones, or for maintenance and inspection tasks. The digital map enables
precise location determination of the individual graves, thus facilitating the planning and
execution of the respective activities.
Added value for administration and the public
In addition to improved orientation for citizens and support
for tradespeople, the digital cemetery map also offers internal advantages for the administration.
The public availability of up-to-date grave data for all parties involved reduces
frequent inquiries, such as those regarding the location of specific graves. Relatives can
now retrieve the information they need independently using the search function. This relieves the
cemetery administration in its daily work and at the same time improves the quality of service
provided to citizens.
Historical cemetery culture made visible
Another aspect of the digital plan is the integration of cultural and historical content.
Many cemeteries contain the graves of historically significant figures or
monuments commemorating important events, which are not always immediately apparent. By
digitizing the cemetery plan, these locations can be made visible and more accessible to all
visitors to the cemetery. At Dortmund’s Ostfriedhof cemetery,
around 100 such graves and monuments have been recorded by the cemetery administration. The
digital plan highlights these historically significant graves and monuments with a
marker and links them to further information such as biographies, photos,
videos, or even historical obituaries and newspaper articles. The cemeteries of the
city of Dortmund thus become an open-air museum that invites visitors to discover the
city’s history.
Case study: Mining accident at Kaiserstuhl II coal mine
A very significant example at Dortmund’s Ostfriedhof cemetery is the memorial to the
mining accident of 1897 at the Kaiserstuhl II coal mine. Three days before Christmas,
18 miners lost their lives in an explosion there. The cemetery map contains photos, historical newspaper articles, video material, and explanatory texts about this
tragic accident.
Digital cemetery culture in transition
With its digital cemetery map, the city of Dortmund offers a system that goes beyond mere
administrative tasks. It combines orientation, information, and historical
education in a publicly accessible format. Dortmund is thus playing a pioneering role
in the entire German-speaking region. The Dortmund cemeteries can thus also be
accessed by people unfamiliar with the area and discovered as an open-air museum.
Source: Friedhofskultur, 01.08.2025
