thumb|left| Six destroyed villages in the area were not rebuilt but were given special status as uninhabited communes of Beaumont-en-Verdunois, Bezonvaux, Cumières-le-Mort-Homme, Fleury-devant-Douaumont, Haumont-près-Samogneux and Louvemont-Côte-du-Poivre. Alain Denizot included period photographs that show overlapping shell craters in an area of about . Forests planted in the 1930s have grown and hide most of the (Red Zone) but the battlefield remains a vast graveyard, containing the mortal remains of over soldiers, except for those discovered by the French Forestry Service and laid in the Douaumont ossuary.
thumb|left| Six destroyed villages in the area were not rebuilt but were given special status as uninhabited communes of Beaumont-en-Verdunois Bezonvaux Cumières-le-Mort-Homme Fleury-devant-Douaumont Haumont-près-Samogneux and Louvemont-Côte-du-Poivre Alain Denizot included period photographs that show overlapping shell craters in an area of about  Forests planted in the 1930s have grown and hide most of the (Red Zone) but the battlefield remains a vast graveyard containing the mortal remains of over soldiers except for those discovered by the French Forestry Service and laid in the Douaumont ossuary