#1Honoré Beaugrand
1848–1906Former mayor of Montreal, Quebec
Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Honoré Beaugrand is the best known, with articles in 7 languages. The next two names are Joseph Israël Tarte and Joseph Robillard. The list’s best known name, Honoré Beaugrand, dates from 1848. Per 10,000 residents, the town has 7, close to the 6.1 of the typical Quebec town.
The three best known are all leaders.
#1Former mayor of Montreal, Quebec
#2Canadian politician
Canadian politician
The 1840s saw the most births of any decade: 2.
Each dot is a person, stacked by the decade they were born.
1 more, best known first.
Close by, Sorel-Tracy counts 87 famous people, the most of its neighbours.
Sorel-Tracy · 11 kmMarc-André Fleury & 86 more
Berthierville · 14 kmJacques Villeneuve & 30 more
Lavaltrie · 10 kmMarie-Rosalie Cadron-Jetté & 8 moreNPSaint-Ours · 10 kmNarcisse Pérodeau & 8 more
Contrecoeur · 11 kmJoseph Edmond Marcile & 8 more
Saint-Paul · 16 kmJoseph Pierre Octave Guilbault & 3 moreMCSaint-Joseph-de-Sorel · 12 kmMichèle Cournoyer & 2 moreJMSainte-Geneviève-de-Berthier · 13 kmJoseph-Alfred Mousseau & 2 moreBy our measure the best known is Honoré Beaugrand (former mayor of Montreal, Quebec); the spotlight above gives the details. Next come Joseph Israël Tarte and Joseph Robillard.
Wikidata places 5 here in all, and those missing from the list lack a confirming article.
100% of the list, where Canadian towns come to 22%.
The earliest is Olivier Durocher, born in 1743, and the latest birth listed is 1848.
Wikidata has to place the birth inside Lanoraie’s municipal boundary (Statistics Canada’s 2021 census subdivision), counting its hospitals and districts, and an English or French Wikipedia article has to say the same. Adult performers, people known mostly for crimes and anyone who only lived here stay off the list.
Some have no birthplace below the province on Wikidata, some were born in a hamlet without a page here, and some have an article that names another place or none at all. The page lists only what Wikidata and Wikipedia agree on, and it follows their corrections at each refresh.
Birthplaces, descriptions, years, occupations and the count of Wikipedia and sister-site articles come from Wikidata (CC0). Each birthplace is checked against the person’s English Wikipedia article, or the French one where English says nothing or has no article; the articles are linked, never quoted. Wikidata’s Statistics Canada code, the place’s name or its point inside the 2021 census outline puts a birth in a town, and a birth given only as a split city stays on that city’s page. Fields are read from the description and occupations, and the list runs by number of articles. “The usual town” is everyone listed across Canadian towns. Portraits: each person’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
Adapted from Statistics Canada (Census of Population 2021, population estimates 2025, 2021 census boundaries) under the Statistics Canada Open Licence; this does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada. Neighbourhood names in some cities © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).