47.3744° N, 8.5411° E
ZURICH
Most Famous People Born in Zurich, Switzerland
- Notable people
- 2,462
- Peak decade
- 1940s
- Median birth year
- 1941
- Most distinctive
- Author 3.5×
A Reformed Swiss city with a disproportionately large academic-and-letters bench. Zurich's distinctive professions are authors, academics, architects, artists, and physicists — the trades of a German-language university town that runs from Gottfried Keller through Max Frisch on the literary side and Einstein and Pauli on the scientific. Pestalozzi, Rorschach, and Elisabeth Kübler-Ross all belong to this bench, and nearly eighty per cent of the names were born after 1900.
One face per century — the most globally famous figure born in Zurich during each.
Notable Births by Decade
Click a decade to filter the list below. Peak: 1940s with 264 notable births.
What Zurich Is Known For
Click any row to filter the list of people below.
Politician is Zurich's biggest profession — 7% of all notables (164).
Zurich over-indexes on author — 3.5× the global rate.
Zurich under-produces football — only 0.4× the global rate.
Profession Mix Over Time
Each band shows a profession family's share of Zurich's notable births by decade. Hover the chart for the breakdown at any decade.
- Writing
- Sports
- Art & Design
- Science
- Film & TV
- Music
- Other
- Field: Historian Clear ×
Johann Jakob Hottinger (historian)
1783 - 1860
Thomas Maissen
Born 1962
Johann Jakob Hottinger
1652 - 1735
Ulrich Stutz
1868 - 1938
Elisabeth Raiser
Born 1940
Alexis Schwarzenbach
Born 1971
Kurt W. Forster
Born 1935
Regula Frei-Stolba
Born 1940
Caspar Hirschi
Born 1975
Aram Mattioli
Born 1961
Ludwig Hirzel (historian)
1838 - 1897
Peter Stadler
1925 - 2012
Hans Heinrich Füssli
1745 - 1832
Ernst Gagliardi
1882 - 1940
Raphael Gross
Born 1966
Georg von Wyß
1816 - 1893
Andreas Meyer (Historiker)
1955 - 2017
Iris Ritzmann
Born 1962
Christian Koller
Born 1971
Jürg Stüssi-Lauterburg
Born 1954
Marita Krauss
Born 1956
Bruno Lezzi
Born 1945
Rudolf von Albertini
1923 - 2004
Flurin Condrau
Born 1965
Angelus Eisinger
Born 1964
Peter Huber (Historiker)
Born 1954
Kurt R. Spillmann
Born 1937
Roland Beck
Born 1949
Rudolf Hiestand
Born 1933
David Gugerli
Born 1961
Heidi Witzig
Born 1944
Werner Ganz
1902 - 1995
Esther Fischer-Homberger
1940 - 2019
Mario König
1947 - 2019
Max Silberschmidt (Historiker)
1899 - 1989
Andreas Ernst (Journalist)
Born 1960
Anselm Zurfluh
Born 1953
Dietrich Schwarz
1913 - 2000
Willy Georg Stoll
Born 1932
Leonhard von Muralt
1900 - 1970
Bernhard Schneider (Historiker)
Born 1958
Stefan Wiederkehr
Born 1969
Klaus Urner
Born 1942
Andreas Staehelin
1926 - 2002
Marthi Pritzker-Ehrlich
1944 - 1998
Wolfgang von Wartburg
1914 - 1997
Ferdinand Meyer (Politiker)
1799 - 1840
Eduard Fueter junior
1908 - 1970
Martin Illi
Born 1956
Hans Frick (Offizier)
1888 - 1975
Heinz Roschewski
1919 - 2010