Colma, California: The City of the Dead



Colma, California, is a bright green expanse of manicured lawns and small white buildings nestled inside the crowded tangle of communities that make up the San Francisco Peninsula. It’s easy to spot from the air as a large splotch of seemingly underdeveloped land squatting next to some of the most expensive and in-demand real estate on the planet. Driving through town, quiet country roads wind past neatly kept residential neighborhoods and a single school that serves the children of Colma’s roughly 1,800 residents. At first glance, the town seems idyllic and peaceful, if a bit heavy on cemeteries. In fact, Colma has way too many cemeteries for such a small place. Every major street seems to connect to one. The last time anybody counted, the town had 17 graveyards with something like 2 million individual graves and tombs for people who died and were buried sometime in the last century. The bubonic plague broke out in San Francisco in 1900. To respond to the crisis, city authorities took the step of outlawing new interments within city limits. Then, almost as soon as the plague came under control, the city was hit with the infamous 1906 earthquake. Buying land for dead people to lie under didn’t seem like much of a plan, and in fact the city’s older graveyards were starting to look like increasingly desirable real estate. Meanwhile, those dead bodies weren’t going to bury themselves, so city planners started looking south to the howling wilderness of the Peninsula. At least some of the nearly 2,000 people in town work at jobs outside of funeral services, but the dead in Colma still take up 78% of the land area and are 99.9% of the residents. It’s no wonder the city’s motto is: “It’s Great to Be Alive in Colma."