Around the world, September 2026

The September issue freezes a people list for sixty-one countries. In fifty-six of them the engine's evidence coverage is high or medium, and the journal prints a named No. 1: the most famous person in that country, by the attention its own readers and the world's paid them. In the other five the list is published as provisional, with its top row shown as the top of a list rather than as a claim.

The sweep

Twenty-five of the fifty-six named No. 1s are the same man. Jesus Christ is the most famous person in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Australia, Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, the Philippines, South Korea, Indonesia and eight more besides, which makes him the holder of more country titles than anyone else in the issue by a distance, a record the journal tracks on its Records page. No single name dominated the August map this way; the September freeze, computed under engine version 5.70, measures the world's attention differently, and this is what it says.

The pattern stops at the borders of deep local fame. In India the most famous person is Salman Khan; in Japan, Shohei Ohtani; in Thailand, Lisa; in Vietnam, Sơn Tùng M-TP; in Pakistan, Mahira Khan; in Saudi Arabia, Mohammed Abdu; in Sweden, Zara Larsson; in Kenya, Fally Ipupa; in Ireland, Cillian Murphy; in Croatia, Johnny Depp; in the Czech Republic, Ewa Farna.

The politicians

Thirteen of the fifty-six named No. 1s hold or recently held political office: Abdelmadjid Tebboune in Algeria, Alexander Stubb in Finland, Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, Anura Kumara Dissanayake in Sri Lanka, Anwar Ibrahim in Malaysia, Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand, Călin Georgescu in Romania, Aleksandar Vučić in Serbia, Lee Hsien Loong in Singapore, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey, Tsai Ing-wen in Taiwan, Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Ukraine, and Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum in the United Arab Emirates.

The historical figures

Twenty-nine of the fifty-six named No. 1s are no longer living, and twenty-five of them are Jesus Christ. The rest: Muhammad is the most famous person in Bangladesh and Morocco; Gabriel García Márquez leads Colombia; Genghis Khan Mongolia, a title he has now held into a second issue. In Russia the most famous person, on the evidence of the month, is Michael Jackson.

Every one of these countries also has an Alive reading, one click from the country list, that names the most famous living person there, and the two readings often tell different stories. Lionel Messi is the most famous living person in Argentina and, remarkably, in Bangladesh. Cristiano Ronaldo leads the Alive list in Portugal; Davido holds Nigeria; Justin Bieber holds Canada and Russia; Donald Trump holds the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom. The World desk prints both side by side for every country in the issue.

The regions

Nine region lists freeze in September. Cristiano Ronaldo is the most famous person in Africa and in Europe; Lionel Messi in Latin America; Donald Trump in North America; Muhammad in the Middle East; Xi Jinping in East Asia; C. Joseph Vijay in South Asia; Agnez Mo in Southeast Asia; Kylie Minogue in Oceania.

The provisional five

Five lists are published without a named No. 1 because evidence coverage is still low: Angola, China, Greece, Iran and Nepal. Jordan, provisional in August, graduates this month with Amr Diab named at No. 1, heading both Egypt and Jordan. The lists exist and can be read; the journal makes no singular claim about them until the engine's coverage improves. That is a statement about the evidence, not about the countries.