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During the past centuries human-induced land use changes resulted in a considerable loss of natural habitats worldwide. In transformed landscapes historical burial places such as cemeteries and churchyards can have the potential for biodiversity conservation. In our review we aimed at evaluating the conservation role of these sites and at revealing factors that can threaten their biota. Altogether we evaluated the results of 97 relevant studies from five continents. We found that cemeteries and churchyards have a considerable conservation role, as even in heavily transformed landscapes they often act as refuges for the populations of rare and endangered species; altogether 140 protected taxa were listed in the reviewed studies. We revealed that the high biodiversity of burial places is supported by their long-term existence and their undisturbed status. However, in parallel with changes in the social attitude the …