This cemetery, named after the neighbourhood in the Wola district where it is located, is the most famous of all of Warsaw's burial grounds. Older cemeteries, which were located within the city limits from the Medieval period, couldn’t handle the population expansion of Warsaw, therefore a new cemetery outside the city was established in the village of Powązki. It covers an area of 44 hectares – making it as large as Vatican City.
The cemetery was established in 1790, and designed by Dominik Merlini, the royal architect to King Stanisław August Poniatowski. The remains of the King’s family, relatives and members of his court are buried in the catacombs. Powązki Cemetery is the final resting place of a number of great Poles, among them: the leader of the 1794 Warsaw Insurrection, Jan Kiliński, actor and director Wojciech Bogusławski, education reformer Stanisław Konarski, Enlightment era politician and publicist Hugo Kołłątaj, writer Bolesław Prus and director Krzysztof Kieślowski.
In 1925, the Avenue of Merit (Aleja Zasłużonych)  was set-up at the southern wall of the catacombs. Among those buried there are Noble Prize winning writer Władysław Reymont, poet Leopold Staff and writer Maria Dąbrowska. Estimates say that over one million people may be buried at Powązki Cemetery, but the exact number is hard to define as the cemetery’s books were destroyed during World War II.
The cemetery’s church – the Church of St. Karol Boromeusz, was funded by King Stanisław August Poniatowski himself and his brother Michał Poniatowski, Primate of Poland. The church was both a cemetery church as well as a parish church and, at one point, even served as a morgue. It was destroyed during the Warsaw Uprising as the Germans set up their heavy artillery at the cemetery and falling shells stoked a fire, as a result of which the church’s dome and part of the roof collapsed. The bells fell from the tower and melted in the fire. After World War II the church was rebuilt, although the process was not completed until the 1960s.
Powązki Cemetery, despite suffering heavily during World War II, is a rich museum of Warsaw’s history as well as a real treasure of sculpture and so-called small architecture, and boasts great works of art from the neoclassic period, the Secession period and contemporary art. All of the cemetery grounds are deemed a national monument, and are under strict supervision of the monument protection office.
Since 1974 a Committee for the protection of Old Powązki (named after publicist and writer Jerzy Waldorff, the founder of the committee), has been advocating for the renovation and protection of the cemetery. Since 1975, every year on All Saint’s Day, famous TV personalities, actors, athletes and politicians collect money for the restoration of the cemetery at its premises, which gives many people a chance to meet their idols.