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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
National
Milica Cosic

Interactive map reveals the most notable person from your hometown

A new incredible interactive map reveals the most notable people that lives or used to live in your neighbourhood.

The map has been developed to show the birthplaces most famous people worldwide.

It used information from Wikipedia and Wikidata to calculate a person's popularity and notability, and was evolved further by geographer Topi Tjukanov and Paris University.

The remarkable map suggested that Donald Trump was the most notable person to hail from New York City, while Henry VII topped the list in Wales, and Heath Ledger in Australia.

The team led by Morgane Laouénan wrote: "A new strand of literature aims at building the most comprehensive and accurate database of notable individuals.

The map is the brainchild of Mapbox researcher and geographer Topi Tjukanov (Paris University)
Who exactly is the most significant person to hail from your hometown? (Paris University)

"We collect a massive amount of data from various editions of Wikipedia and Wikidata."

The data itself took into account a number of factors - from the average number of views for each person from 2015-2018 to the length of entries, according to MailOnline.

Mr Tjukanov explained: "Using data from Morgane Laouenan et al, the map is showing birthplaces of the most 'notable people' around the world.

"Data has been processed to show only one person for each unique geographic location with the highest notability rank."

In order to use the map, there are four different categories - Culture, Discovery & Science, Leadership, or Sports & Games - where users can view the most notable person in their hometown.

Otherwise, by selecting the 'All' button, it allowed people to see the the overall most notable person - which surprisingly suggested that Charlie Chaplin was actually the UK capital's most notable person.

Barack Obama tops the list in Honolulu while in Florida, some of the most famous names are Jim Morrison and Tomy Petty (Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Meanwhile, in other cities across the UK, Roald Dahl was the most notable person from Cardiff, J.J. Thomson from Manchester, Mel B from Leeds, and Sean Connery from Edinburgh, according to the map.

And across the pond, Selena Gomez topped the list in Texas, while in Florida, Ariana Grande, was amongst the most famous.

In California, it's Marilyn Monroe, Cameron Diaz, and Cher who took the titles as the most notable people.

Mr Tjukanov posted a link to the map on Twitter, writing: "Did you know Freddie Mercury was born in Zanzibar and Barack Obama in Honolulu?

"Who is the most famous person from your hometown?"

Sean Connery is first in the list in Edinburgh (Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

This led to many users commenting the most unexpected famous faces from their hometowns.

One person interestingly said: "My small hometown of Linlithgow (pop. 15k) is birthplace to Mary Queen of Scots, Prof Charles Wyville Thomson (who led the Challenger expedition of 1872), John West (tinned fish) and in 2222 *will* be the birth place of Cmdr Montgomery Scott of the USS Enterprise!"

While another wrote: "Sharing a birthplace with Frank Oz will never stop pleasing me. I like to tell people that means both Yoda and Fozzie Bear were born in the same hospital as me."

And a third shared: "This is just such silly fun. I'm enjoying discovering all the folks I didn't know were Yinzers: Jeff Goldblum? Coach Cal? Never knew about them!"

Most notable people in UK cities

  • London - Charlie Chaplin
  • Cardiff - Roald Dahl
  • Birmingham - Ozzy Osbourne
  • Manchester - J.J. Thomson
  • Liverpool - John Lennon
  • Southampton - John Everett Millais
  • Bristol - Cary Grant
  • York - Judi Dench
  • Sunderland - Bryan Ferry
  • Middlesbrough - James Cook
  • Norwich - Philip Pullman
  • Coventry - Clive Owen

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