52.2300° N, 21.0111° E

WARSAW

Most Famous People Born in Warsaw, Poland

Notable people
2,811
Peak decade
1900s
Median birth year
1926
Most distinctive
Chess 7.5×

A city that keeps having to rebuild its memory. Warsaw's distinctive professions are chess masters, fencers, mathematicians, physicists, and rowers — a combination that maps almost exactly onto the Jewish and intellectual life that the city lost in the 1940s and never fully recovered. The dataset's most famous Varsovian was born in 1867 and left at twenty-four; many of the rest of the brightest names share some version of that biography.

Through the Decades

One face per decade — the most globally famous figure born in Warsaw during each.

Notable Births by Decade

Click a decade to filter the list below. Peak: 1900s with 256 notable births.

What Warsaw Is Known For

Click any row to filter the list of people below.

Actor is Warsaw's biggest profession — 9% of all notables (254).

Warsaw over-indexes on chess7.5× the global rate.

Warsaw under-produces football — only 0.3× the global rate.

  1. Actor254
  2. Politician159
  3. Painter143
  4. Writer119
  5. Football90
  6. Composer86
  7. Journalist76
  8. Sport72
  1. Chess437.5×
  2. Fencer387.0×
  3. Mathematician523.7×
  4. Physicist433.7×
  5. Rower292.8×
  6. Historian692.3×
  7. Composer862.3×
  8. Poet642.2×
  1. Football900.3×
  2. Politician1590.5×

Profession Mix Over Time

Each band shows a profession family's share of Warsaw's notable births by decade. Hover the chart for the breakdown at any decade.

1550160016501700175018001850190019502000
  • Sports
  • Writing
  • Film & TV
  • Science
  • Music
  • Art & Design
  • Other
All2,811
Sort By

Showing 33 of 2,811 notable people

0032 WRITER

Józef Ignacy Kraszewski

1812 - 1887

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0104 PAINTER

Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann

1819 - 1881

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0175 COMPOSER

Julian Fontana

1810 - 1869

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0179 POET

Narcyza Żmichowska

1819 - 1876

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0377 OFFICER

Konstantin Konstantinov

1818 - 1871

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0385 POLITICAL

Count Xavier Branicki

1816 - 1879

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0419 ENTREPRENEUR

Leopold Stanisław Kronenberg

1812 - 1878

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0485 DIPLOMAT

Louis Wolowski

1810 - 1876

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0556 PAINTER

Aleksander Lesser

1814 - 1884

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0692 ACTOR

Bogumil Dawison

1818 - 1872

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0711 PRINTER

Samuel Orgelbrand

1810 - 1868

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0845 PHOTOGRAPHER

Karol Beyer

1818 - 1877

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0944 COMPOSER

Emilia Chopin

1812 - 1827

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1071 OFFICER

Juliusz Konstanty Ordon

1810 - 1887

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1106 ACTOR

Aniela Aszpergerowa

1816 - 1902

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1211 PASTOR

Leopold Otto

1819 - 1882

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1217 RABBI

Izaak Kramsztyk

1814 - 1899

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1399 EXPLORER

Avgust Tsivolko

1810 - 1839

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1444 ECONOMIST

Henryk Michał Kamieński

1813 - 1865

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1516 JOURNALIST

Wladislaw Bentkowski

1817 - 1887

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1523 MISSING

Józef Karol Konrad Chełmicki

1814 - 1890

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1550 POET

Gustaw Ehrenberg

1818 - 1895

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1611 AUTHOR

Józef Bohdan Dziekoński

1816 - 1855

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1628 COMPOSER

Edouard Wolff

1816 - 1880

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1760 RABBI

Yaakov Gesundheit

1815 - 1878

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1977 CONDUCTOR

Antoine Orlowski

1811 - 1861

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2052 REVOLUTIONARY

Zenon Świętosławski

1811 - 1875

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2094 SINGER

Konstancja Gładkowska

1810 - 1889

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2157 ACTOR

Alojzy Gonzaga Jazon Żółkowski

1814 - 1889

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2250 MILITAR

Zdzisław Zamoyski

1810 - 1855

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2290 INVENTOR

Izrael Abraham Staffel

1814 - 1884

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2559 MISSING

Piotr Szembek

1816 - 1866

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2780 VIOLONISTE

Marie Poznanska

1819 - 1873

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