33.9250° S, 18.4249° E

CAPE TOWN

Most Famous People Born in Cape Town, South Africa

Notable people

1,062

Peak decade

1980s

Median birth year

1970

Most distinctive

Cricket 10.4×

A city whose leaderboard is almost entirely cricket, and then everything else. The long shadow of South African Test cricket fills most of the top of the list — Newlands is one of the oldest Test grounds in the world and it shows — but the names that travel furthest come from the quieter corners: J. M. Coetzee, the 2003 Nobel laureate in literature; Abdullah Ibrahim, the pianist whose 'Mannenberg' became an unofficial anthem of the anti-apartheid movement; and Marlene Dumas, one of the highest-priced living painters anywhere. A surprising density of botanists too, drawn in by Kirstenbosch and the Cape Floral Kingdom on the city's doorstep.