Throughout history, people around the world have become famous for a variety of reasons. Kings or emperors, politicians, singers, painters, writers, actors or great generals… see their names bloom on street signs, schools or other buildings. These personalities are often celebrated by the cities where they were born or sometimes died. But we don’t always know much about them and even less about where they were actually born!
So if you've ever wondered if someone important was born in your town, there's a way to find out. thanks to a card which recently went viral and will answer your question. So you can say that you live in the exact place where a character who has entered history was born… for better or for worse!
Notable People, an interactive map of the birthplaces of celebrities and historical figures
This map is called Notable People and covers every country in the world.
When you arrive on the map, you will see the most important personalities displayed on the globe. But you will be able to zoom in on the map to display more and more celebrities at the country level. The more you zoom in, the more details you will see and lesser-known personalities.
It is worth noting that this map is based on a fairly serious database, as it was designed for a social science study published in the journal Nature. The aim of this study was to determine the level of importance of public figures in specific geographical areas, by listing births between 3500 BC and 2018.
By clicking on the different names that appear on the map, you will access a microfiche indicating the sex of the famous person, their rank of notoriety, whether they are alive or dead as well as a clickable link to their Wikidata file.
This site is really interesting and deserves to spend some time there while strolling from city to city to discover the most famous people in the area. For each place, the site has decided to only display the personality with the most notoriety in order to have something readable.
Finally, on the left of the map it is possible to refine the results displayed by selecting the type of celebrities you want to see. It is thus possible to display everyone, personalities linked to culture, science, politics or sport. A last button also allows you to display the names of places to better find your way around!
