# List of people from Prague

Prague, the capital of today's Czech Republic, has been for over a thousand years the centre and the biggest city of the Czech lands. Notable people who were born or died, studied, lived or saw their success in Prague are listed below.

## The arts

* H. G. Adler (1910–1988) — German-language writer; born and lived in Prague
* Filip Albrecht (born 1977) — lyricist, film producer, writer; lives in Prague
* Jana Andrsová (1939–2023) — actress and ballerina; born and lives in Prague
* Lída Baarová (1914–2000) — actress; lived and died in Prague
* Max Brod (1884–1968) — German-language writer; born and lived in Prague
* Karel Čapek (1890–1938) — writer; lived and died in Prague
* Jan Cina (born 1988) — actor and singer
* Gene Deitch (1924–2020) — American-born animator; lives in Prague
* Emmy Destinn (1878–1930) — operatic soprano; born in Prague
* Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904) — composer; lived most of his life in Prague
* Miloš Forman (1932–2018) — film director, won twice Academy Award for Best Director; studied and lived in Prague
* Karel Gott (1939–2019) — singer; lived in Prague
* Jaroslav Hašek (1883–1923) — writer, humorist and satirist; lived in Prague for most of his life, described the city in many stories
* Auguste Hauschner (1850–1924) — German writer, born in Prague
* Václav Havel (1936–2011) — dramatist, writer and politician; President of Czechoslovakia and Czech republic (its first; 1993–2003); born and lived in Prague
* Maxim Havlíček — painter; born in Prague
* Karel Heřmánek (1947–2024) — actor; born in Prague
* Vladimír Holan (1905–1980) — poet; born, lived and died in Prague
* Jiří Hošta (born 1978) — writer, essayist, photographer; lives in Prague
* Bohumil Hrabal (1914–1997) — writer; lived and died in Prague
* Leoš Janáček (1854–1928) — composer; studied in Prague
* Fanny Janauschek (1830–1904) — actress; migrated to the United States in 1867
* Franz Kafka (1883–1924) — German-language fiction writer; born and lived in Prague
* Tomas Kalnoky (born 1980) — guitarist, singer; born in Prague
* Gertrud Kauders (1883–1942) – artist; born in Prague
* Egon Erwin Kisch (1885–1948) – German-language journalist and writer; born, lived, and died in Prague
* Stefan Kisyov (born 1963) — novelist; lives in Prague
* Daria Klimentová (born 1971) — ballet dancer; born and raised in Prague
* Paul Kornfeld (1889–1942) — German-language playwright and novelist; born and lived in Prague
* Ivan Kral (1948–2020) — guitarist, singer, record producer and film director; born in Prague
* Milan Kundera (1929–2023) — writer; studied, lectured at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague
* Master of the Chudenice Altarpiece — painter active in Prague at the turn of the late Gothic and early Renaissance
* Leopold Eugen Měchura (1804–1870) — composer
* Jiří Menzel (1938–2020) — film director (his first feature film, Closely Watched Trains (1966) won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film); born in Prague
* Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) — composer; some of his best opera successes were during his time in Prague
* Alfons Mucha (1860–1939) — Art Nouveau painter and decorative artist; spent last decades of his life in Prague
* Josef Václav Myslbek (1848–1922) — sculptor; born in Prague and creator of the Wenceslas Monument in Prague's Wenceslas Square
* Zuzana Navarová (1959–2004) — singer; lived and died in Prague
* Jože Plečnik (1872–1957) — Slovene architect; built several churches and parts of the Prague Castle
* Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) — German-language poet; born and studied in Prague
* Karel Roden (born 1962) — actor; lives in Prague
* Jan Saudek (born 1935) — art photographer; born and lives in Prague
* Jaroslav Seifert (1901–1986) — poet and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1984); lived in Prague
* Bedřich Smetana (1824–1884) — composer; lived and died in Prague
* Kamila Špráchalová (born 1971) — stage and television actress
* Jiří Suchý (born 1931) — actor, singer, playwright, writer; born and lives in Prague
* Bertha von Suttner (1843–1914) — novelist, pacifist activist and writer, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (1905)
* Vladimír Svozil (born 1966) — painter
* Lubor Těhník (1926–1987) — ceramist
* Johannes Urzidil (1896–1970) — German-language writer; born and lived in Prague, described the city in many stories (The Lost Beloved, 1956, Prague Triptych, 1960)
* Romana Vaccaro (1956–2024) — opera singer
* Marja Vallila (1950–2018) — sculptor
* Robert Vano (born 1948) — art photographer; lives in Prague
* Sonja Vectomov (born 1979) — composer, musician; lives in Prague
* Felix Weltsch (1884–1964) — German-language writer; born and lived in Prague
* Robert Weltsch (1891–1982) — German-language journalist; born and lived in Prague
* Franz Werfel (1890–1945) — German-language writer; born and lived in Prague
* Jan Werich (1905–1980) — actor, singer, playwright, writer; born, lived and died in Prague
* David Woodard (born 1964) — American-born writer and businessman; lives in Prague
* Walter Trier (1890–1951) — illustrator; born in Prague
* Dana Zámečníková (born 1945) — sculptor, born in Prague

## Monarchs

* Charles IV (1316–1378) — Holy Roman Emperor; under his rule the Charles University in Prague was established and the Charles Bridge was built; made the city his main seat of government
* Rudolf II (1552–1612) — Holy Roman Emperor; made the city the capital of the Habsburg Empire; attracted both scientists and charlatans to Prague

## The sciences

* Bernard Bolzano (1781–1848) — mathematician, logician, philosopher, Catholic theologian
* Tycho Brahe (1546–1601) — astronomer; spent end of life near Prague
* Carl Ferdinand Cori (1896–1984) — biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1947)
* Gerty Cori (1896–1957) — biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1947)
* Karl Deutsch (1912–1992) — social scientist, political scientist
* Albert Einstein (1879–1955) — physicist, served as professor at the German part of the Charles University in Prague (1911–1912)
* Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) — inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, and futurist, studied at Charles University in Prague (1880)
* Jaroslav Heyrovský (1890–1967) — chemist; inventor of the polarographic method and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1959); born, lived most of his life and died in Prague
* Antonín Holý (1936–2012) — chemist, pharmacologist
* Jan Janský (1873–1921) — serologist, neurologist, psychiatrist
* Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) — astronomer; in 1601, he succeeded Tycho Brahe as imperial mathematician and the next eleven years lectured for several years in Prague and published his paper on Doppler effect there
* Enoch Heinrich Kisch (1841–1918) — balneologist

## In sports

* František Getreuer (1906–1945), swimmer and Olympic water polo player, killed in Dachau concentration camp
* Radko Gudas (born 1990), ice hockey player
* Ladislav Hecht (1909–2004), Czechoslovak-American tennis player
* Tomáš Hertl (born 1993), ice hockey player; born and raised in Prague
* Jeremy Kelly (born 1997), footballer; born in Prague
* Martina Navratilova (born 1956), tennis player; 18 times Grand Slam champion, born in Prague
* Pavel Nedvěd (born 1972), footballer; 2003 Ballon d'Or winner; lived and played in Prague
* Felix Pipes (1887–1983), tennis player, Olympic medalist
* František Plánička (1904–1996), footballer, captain of the Czechoslovakia national football team
* Tomáš Rosický (born 1980), footballer; born in Prague
* Jan Soukup (born 1979), karateka and kickboxer; born in Prague
* Daniel Vladař (born 1997), ice hockey player; born in Prague
* Jakub Vrána (born 1996), ice hockey player; born and raised in Prague
* Václav Žáček (born 1978), personal watercraft extreme sports athlete; born in Prague
* Emil Zátopek (1922–2000), athlete, Olympic winner; lived and died in Prague
* Aneta Tejralová (born 1996), ice hockey player; born in Prague

## Other fields

* Vladimir Balthasar (1897–1978), entomologist, naturalist and ornithologist
* Karel Baxa (1863–1938), politician; mayor of Prague for almost two decades
* Adolph Aloys von Braun (1818–1904), diplomat and statesman
* Jan van der Croon (1600–1665), Dutch soldier; military commander of Prague 1652–1665
* Emil Engelmüller (1873–1944), Czech entrepreneur, leatherwork fashion designer, and motor enthusiast
* Charles Fried (1935–2024), United States Solicitor General, 1985–89
* Rabbi Manis Friedman (born 1946), Prague-born American Chabad rabbi, author, and lecturer
* Reinhard Heydrich (1904–1942), Nazi general and protector; assassinated in Prague during Operation Anthropoid while serving as governor of the occupied country
* Jan Hus (1369–1415), priest, philosopher, reformer; most-important preaching done in Prague
* Jerome of Prague (1379–1416), scholastic philosopher, theologian, reformer, and professor
* Gershom ben Solomon Kohen (d. 1544), early printer of Hebrew books and founder of the Gersonides (printers)
* Pyotra Krecheuski (1879–1928), Belarusian statesman and president of the Rada of the Belarusian Democratic Republic in exile; died in Prague
* František Křižík (1847–1941), inventor, electrical engineer and entrepreneur set up his company in Prague
* Judah Loew ben Bezalel (1525–1609), Talmudic scholar, Jewish mystic and philosopher; lived most of his life in Prague
* Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (1850–1937), philosopher, politician; lived in Prague for a substantial part of his life
* Jan Patočka (1907–1977), philosopher; born, lived and died in Prague
* Vasil Zacharka (1877–1943), Belarusian statesman and the second president of the Belarusian Democratic Republic in exile; died in Prague
* Jan Žižka (ca. 1360–1424), general and Hussite leader; participated in start of the rebellion in Prague, later defended the city against Crusaders in the first anti-Hussite crusade of the Hussite Wars