45.7583° N, 4.8412° E

LYON

Most Famous People Born in Lyon, France

Notable people

2,546

Peak decade

1940s

Median birth year

1907

Most distinctive

Architect 3.9×

A Roman foundation that gave the empire two emperors and the modern Republic a silk industry. Lyon's distinctive professions are architects, painters, physicians, botanists, and sculptors — the trades of a medical-and-craft city built around its great hospitals and the silk weavers of the Croix-Rousse. Claudius and Caracalla were both born here, Jacquard invented his loom here, and Saint-Exupéry grew up a few streets from the Rhône; the 18th-century bench is heavier than in most French cities outside Paris.