Now here’s something interesting. Did you know that the Familia Luzuriaga Cemetery in Bacolod City is “the only cemetery in the world at the intersection of two highways” according to the Guinness World Records? Well, that’s what many websites say but I could not verify that since the Guinness World Records website does not contain all the 40,000+ records and the print edition is also unlikely to have this obscure record. Anyway, the record is a misnomer because the cemetery is actually an island of Lopez Jaena Street and that only one end (shown below) is located at the intersection with Burgos Ave.

Photo by Yeweifang.

If you zoom out a bit in Google Maps, you can see the huge Bacolod Cemetery to the east. Now why do the Luzuriagas have such a special location for their family’s remains? Well, the Ruiz de Luzuriaga family is a prominent clan in Negros whose forefather, Don Eusebio Ruiz de Luzuriaga, hails from the proud Basque Country in Spain and France. His son, José Ruiz de Luzuriaga, a rich sugar businessman, became part of Philippine history when he was appointed the President of the Constituent Assembly of the short-lived Negros Republic that existed in 1899 following the Negros Revolution against the Spanish colonial government. The lot of José‘s hacienda house is now where the Bacolod City Hall stands.

If you’re interested to learn more, here’s a Flickr photo of the inside of the cemetery and here’s a forum thread where I gleaned much of the information about the Luzuriagas.

Download KML file (for Google Earth)