To commemorate and remember - our story

Photo: courtesy IWM

The CWGC is a global organisation, caring for war graves at 23,000 locations in more than 150 countries and territories. We commemorate almost 1.7 million individuals, ensuring that all the Commonwealth men and women who died during both world wars are commemorated in a manner befitting their sacrifice.

Our global estate is run by a multinational and multilingual workforce numbering approximately 1,300 – the vast majority of whom are gardeners and stone masons.

Since our establishment by Royal Charter we have constructed 2,500 war cemeteries and plots, erected headstones over graves and where the remains are missing, inscribed the names of the dead on permanent memorials. More than a million burials are now commemorated at military and civil sites around the world.

Our work is constant, amending records, searching for missing names, building new memorials and where historical inequalities in commemoration are found, ensuring all those who fell are equally remembered.

We also have a duty to ensure our sites remain well visited so remembrance of the war dead continues, creating information centres, volunteering opportunities and education programmes designed to engage and educate generations to come.

Click on the pictures below to learn more about our history.