34.6910° N, 135.1826° E
KOBE
Most Famous People Born in Kobe, Japan
- Notable people
- 742
- Peak decade
- 1980s
- Median birth year
- 1963
- Most distinctive
- Rikishi 71.1×
Kobe was Japan's most foreign-facing port long before the 1995 earthquake, and the old Kitano settlements still show in an unusual density of bilingual Novelists. The real surprises are the voice-acting studios and manga houses that clustered here postwar — Seiyū and Manga counts running at seventy and sixty-plus times their global baselines — and a Judo bench that traces back to Kanō Jigorō founding the sport down the road.
One face per decade — the most globally famous figure born in Kobe during each.
Notable Births by Decade
Click a decade to filter the list below. Peak: 1980s with 110 notable births.
What Kobe Is Known For
Click any row to filter the list of people below.
Football is Kobe's biggest profession — 17% of all notables (129).
Kobe over-indexes on rikishi — 71.1× the global rate.
Kobe under-produces writer — only 0.4× the global rate.
Profession Mix Over Time
Each band shows a profession family's share of Kobe's notable births by decade. Hover the chart for the breakdown at any decade.
- Sports
- Film & TV
- Music
- Art & Design
- Politics & Law
- Writing
- Other
- Filtered to 1880s Clear ×
Toyohiko Kagawa
1888 - 1960
Hashimoto Kansetsu
1883 - 1945
Sanzo Wada
1883 - 1967
Rensuke Isogai
1886 - 1967
Shizuichi Tanaka
1887 - 1945
Ikuo Oyama
1880 - 1955
Tokubei Kuroda
1886 - 1987
Kiichi Okamoto
1888 - 1930
Hisakazu Tanaka
1889 - 1947
Kanayama Heizō
1883 - 1964
Keisuke Fujie
1885 - 1969
Miki Suizan
1887 - 1957
Mitsusada Umetani
1880 - 1936
Gordon Dukes
1888 - 1966
Charles Calveley Foss
1885 - 1953