Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes in the context of Lourdes Medical Bureau

Lourdes (/lʊərd/, also US: /lʊərdz/, French: [luʁd] ; Occitan: Lorda [ˈluɾðɔ]) is a market town situated in the Pyrenees. It is part of the Hautes-Pyrénées department in the Occitanie region in southwestern France. Prior to the mid-19th century, the town was best known for its Château fort, a fortified castle that rises up from a rocky escarpment at its center.

In 1858, Lourdes rose to prominence in France and abroad due to the Marian apparitions to the peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous (later canonized a saint by the Catholic Church for her virtuous life). Shortly thereafter, the city and its Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes became among the world's most important sites for pilgrimage and religious tourism.

The Basilica of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception (French: Basilique de Notre-Dame de l'Immaculée-Conception de Lourdes), known widely as the "Upper Church", is a Catholic church and minor basilica within the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes in France.

The Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary (French: Notre Dame du Rosaire de Lourdes) is a Catholic church and minor basilica within the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes in France. Its main theme is a celebration and depiction of the Rosary.

The Basilica of Saint Pius X, informally known as the Underground Basilica, is a Catholic church and minor basilica in the town of Lourdes, France. It is part of the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, a major pilgrimage site. The Basilica of St. Pius X is the largest of the sanctuary's churches. It was completed in 1958 in anticipation of the enormous crowds expected in Lourdes for the centenary of the Lourdes apparitions.

Lourdes water is water which flows from a spring in the Grotto of Massabielle in the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, France. According to Catholic tradition, the location of the spring was described to Bernadette Soubirous by an apparition of Our Lady of Lourdes on 25 February 1858. Since that time, many millions of pilgrims to Lourdes have followed the instruction of the Blessed Virgin Mary to "drink at the spring and bathe in it".

Since the supposed apparitions, many people have claimed to have been cured by drinking or bathing in it, and the Lourdes authorities provide it free of charge. Those claims have been described as an example of the placebo effect.

Bernadette Soubirous, SCN (/ˌbɜːrnəˈdɛt ˌsuːbiˈruː/; French: [bɛʁnadɛt subiʁu]; Occitan: Bernadeta Sobirós [beɾnaˈðetɔ suβiˈɾus]; 7 January 1844 – 16 April 1879), also known as Bernadette of Lourdes (religious name Marie-Bernarde), was a miller's daughter from Lourdes (Lorda in Occitan), in the department of Hautes-Pyrénées in France, and is best known for experiencing apparitions of a "young lady" who asked for a chapel to be built at the nearby cave-grotto. These apparitions occurred between 11 February and 16 July 1858, and the young lady who appeared to her identified herself as the "Immaculate Conception".

After a canonical investigation, Soubirous's reports were eventually declared "worthy of belief" on 18 February 1862, and the Marian apparition became known as Our Lady of Lourdes. In 1866, Soubirous joined the Sisters of Charity of Nevers at their convent in Nevers where she spent the last years of her life. Her body is said by the Catholic Church to remain internally incorrupt. The grotto where the apparitions occurred became a major pilgrimage site and Marian shrine known as the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, attracting around five million pilgrims of all denominations each year.

The Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes is located at the University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame, Indiana, United States, and is a reproduction of the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes in Lourdes, France. The current Grotto was built in 1896, replacing a wooden grotto built on August 22, 1878. An artificial rock cave, the Grotto is used by its visitors as a sacred space for prayer, meditation, and outdoor Mass.

Rev. Edward Sorin, C.S.C., the French Holy Cross priest who founded the University of Notre Dame in 1842 on a tract of land in Northern Indiana, had a lifelong devotion to Mary. He named several structures on the nascent campus after the Blessed Virgin Mary, and, seeking to attract Catholic pilgrims to Notre Dame, he constructed a replica of the Portiuncula—a Marian chapel located in the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary of the Angels in Assisi. After a trip to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes in 1873, Sorin sought to create a replica of the Lourdes Grotto at the university's campus; the replica of the Grotto was constructed beginning in the spring of 1878 and was completed by the end of summertime. The replica was a wooden structure that sat atop a small rock wall, complete with several religious statues, and adjacent to the Church of the Sacred Heart. Less than three years after Sorin's death in 1893, a replacement for this first Grotto was announced.