Located on the North Slope of Mount Royal the hills and valleys of beautiful Mount Royal Cemetery provide a surprising succession of views over its 165 acres. The Mount Royal Cemetery, one of the first rural cemeteries in North America, was incorporated in 1847 under an Act of the Provincial Parliament of Canada. It followed the trend of American rural cemeteries of the mid-1800’s which was to be located outside of the city and to combine horticulture and commemoration. For this reason Mount Royal Cemetery became a beautiful garden on the mountain with the romantic notion of a city of the dead overlooking a city of the living.