Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
World
Alastair McCready in Taipei

China to ban storing remains of dead in ‘bone ash apartments’

A photo made with a drone shows a construction site in Shanghai
Apartments are being used instead of cemetery plots in China, which recorded 11.3m deaths in 2025, up from 9.8m in 2015 Photograph: Alex Plavevski/EPA

China is introducing a law to stop people storing the ashes of their dead relatives in empty high-rise flats rather than paying steep costs for increasingly scarce cemetery plots.

China’s new funeral management legislation will prohibit the use of “residential housing specifically for the purpose of storing cremated remains” and the burial of corpses or construction of tombs in “areas other than public cemeteries”.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.