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.
Arts
- H. G. Adler, German-language writer; born and lived in Prague
- Filip Albrecht, lyricist, film producer, writer; lives in Prague
- Jana Andrsová, actress and ballerina; born and lives in Prague
- Lída Baarová, actress; lived and died in Prague
- Max Brod, German-language writer; born and lived in Prague
- Karel Čapek, writer; lived and died in Prague
- Jan Cina, actor and singer
- Gene Deitch, American-born animator; lived in Prague
- Emmy Destinn, operatic soprano; born in Prague
- Antonín Dvořák, composer; lived most of his life in Prague
- Miloš Forman, film director, won twice Academy Award for Best Director; studied and lived in Prague
- Karel Gott, singer; lived in Prague
- Jaroslav Hašek, writer, humorist and satirist; lived in Prague for most of his life, described the city in many stories
- Auguste Hauschner, German writer, born in Prague
- Václav Havel, dramatist, writer and politician; President of Czechoslovakia and Czech republic ; born and lived in Prague
- Maxim Havlíček, painter; born in Prague
- Karel Heřmánek, actor; born in Prague
- Vladimír Holan, poet; born, lived and died in Prague
- Bohumil Hrabal, writer; lived and died in Prague
- Leoš Janáček, composer; studied in Prague
- Fanny Janauschek, actress; migrated to the United States in 1867
- Ludmila Janovská, painter; lived in Prague
- Franz Kafka, German-language fiction writer; born and lived in Prague
- Tomas Kalnoky, guitarist, singer; born in Prague
- Gertrud Kauders, artist; born in Prague
- Egon Erwin Kisch, German-language journalist and writer; born, lived, and died in Prague
- Stefan Kisyov, novelist; lives in Prague
- Ivan Klíma, novelist and playwright; born in Prague
- Daria Klimentová, ballet dancer; born and raised in Prague
- Paul Kornfeld, German-language playwright and novelist; born and lived in Prague
- Ivan Kral, guitarist, singer, record producer and film director; born in Prague
- Milan Kundera, 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, composer
- Jiří Menzel, film director ; born in Prague
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, composer; some of his best opera successes were during his time in Prague
- Alfons Mucha, Art Nouveau painter and decorative artist; spent last decades of his life in Prague
- Josef Václav Myslbek, sculptor; born in Prague and creator of the Wenceslas Monument in Prague's Wenceslas Square
- Zuzana Navarová, singer; lived and died in Prague
- Jože Plečnik, Slovene architect; built several churches and parts of the Prague Castle
- Rainer Maria Rilke, German-language poet; born and studied in Prague
- Karel Roden, actor; lives in Prague
- Jan Saudek, art photographer; born and lives in Prague
- Jaroslav Seifert, poet and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature ; lived in Prague
- Anna Slováčková, actress and singer. Born, lived and died in Prague.
- Bedřich Smetana, composer; lived and died in Prague
- Kamila Špráchalová, stage and television actress
- Jiří Suchý, actor, singer, playwright, writer; born and lives in Prague
- Bertha von Suttner, novelist, pacifist activist and writer, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
- Vladimír Svozil, painter
- Lubor Těhník, ceramist
- Johannes Urzidil, German-language writer; born and lived in Prague, described the city in many stories
- Romana Vaccaro, opera singer
- Marja Vallila, sculptor
- Robert Vano, art photographer; lives in Prague
- Felix Weltsch, German-language writer; born and lived in Prague
- Robert Weltsch, German-language journalist; born and lived in Prague
- Franz Werfel, German-language writer; born and lived in Prague
- Jan Werich, actor, singer, playwright, writer; born, lived and died in Prague
- Walter Trier, illustrator; born in Prague
- Dana Zámečníková, sculptor, born in Prague
Politics
- Karel Baxa, politician; mayor of Prague for almost two decades
- Adolph Aloys von Braun, diplomat and statesman
- Charles IV, 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
- Charles Fried, United States Solicitor General, 1985–89
- Reinhard Heydrich, Nazi general and protector; assassinated in Prague during Operation Anthropoid while serving as governor of the occupied country
- Pyotra Krecheuski, Belarusian statesman and president of the Rada of the Belarusian Democratic Republic in exile; died in Prague
- Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, philosopher, politician; lived in Prague for a substantial part of his life
- Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor; made the city the capital of the Habsburg Empire; attracted both scientists and charlatans to Prague
- Vasil Zacharka, Belarusian statesman and the second president of the Belarusian Democratic Republic in exile; died in Prague
- Jan Žižka, 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
Science and academia
- Vladimir Balthasar, entomologist, naturalist and ornithologist
- Bernard Bolzano, mathematician, logician, philosopher, Catholic theologian
- Tycho Brahe, astronomer; spent end of life near Prague
- Carl Ferdinand Cori, biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- Gerty Cori, biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- Karl Deutsch, social scientist, political scientist
- Albert Einstein, physicist, served as professor at the German part of the Charles University in Prague
- Jaroslav Heyrovský, chemist; inventor of the polarographic method and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry ; born, lived most of his life and died in Prague
- Antonín Holý, chemist, pharmacologist
- Jan Janský, serologist, neurologist, psychiatrist
- Jerome of Prague, scholastic philosopher, theologian, reformer, and professor
- Johannes Kepler, 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, balneologist
- František Křižík, inventor, electrical engineer and entrepreneur, set up his company in Prague
- Lubomír Linhart, Czech film historian, critic and photography theorist
- Jan Patočka, philosopher; born, lived and died in Prague
- Anna Řeháková, teacher, writer and translator
- Eliška Řeháková, teacher, translator, journalist and suffragist
- David Scheffel, former professor and anthropologist, born in Prague
- Nikola Tesla, inventor and engineer, studied at Charles University in Prague
Sports
- František Getreuer, swimmer and Olympic water polo player, killed in Dachau concentration camp
- Radko Gudas, ice hockey player
- Ladislav Hecht, Czechoslovak-American tennis player
- Tomáš Hertl, ice hockey player; born and raised in Prague
- Jeremy Kelly, footballer; born in Prague
- Martina Navratilova, tennis player; 18 times Grand Slam champion, born in Prague
- Pavel Nedvěd, footballer; 2003 Ballon d'Or winner; lived and played in Prague
- Felix Pipes, tennis player, Olympic medalist
- František Plánička, footballer, captain of the Czechoslovakia national football team
- Tomáš Rosický, footballer; born in Prague
- Jan Soukup, karateka and kickboxer; born in Prague
- Daniel Vladař, ice hockey player; born in Prague
- Jakub Vrána, ice hockey player; born and raised in Prague
- Václav Žáček, personal watercraft extreme sports athlete; born in Prague
- Emil Zátopek, athlete, Olympic winner; lived and died in Prague
- Aneta Tejralová, ice hockey player; born in Prague
Other fields
- Jan van der Croon, Dutch soldier; military commander of Prague 1652–1665
- Emil Engelmüller, Czech entrepreneur, leatherwork fashion designer, and motor enthusiast
- Eva Erben, Czech Israeli writer and Holocaust survivor
- Rabbi Manis Friedman, Prague-born American Chabad rabbi, author, and lecturer
- Jan Hus, priest, philosopher, reformer; most-important preaching done in Prague
- Gershom ben Solomon Kohen, early printer of Hebrew books and founder of the Gersonides (printers)
- Judah Loew ben Bezalel, Talmudic scholar, Jewish mystic and philosopher; lived most of his life in Prague