List of Famous people born in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, Poland

Hedwig Jagiellon was a Polish and Lithuanian princess, and a member of the Jagiellon dynasty. For most of her life she, as the only child of Wladyslaw Jagiello, was considered to be heiress of the Polish and Lithuanian thrones. After the birth of Jagiello's sons in 1424 and 1427, Hedwig had some support for her claims to the throne. She died in 1431 amidst rumors that she was poisoned by her stepmother Sophia of Halshany.

Spytek of Melsztyn was a Polish nobleman (szlachcic) of the Leliwa coat of arms.

Władysław III, also known as Władysław of Varna, was King of Poland from 1434 and King of Hungary and Croatia from 1440 until his death at the Battle of Varna.

Jan Alojzy Matejko was a Polish painter, a leading 19th-century exponent of history painting, known for depicting nodal events from Polish history. His works include large scale oil paintings such as Rejtan (1866), the Union of Lublin (1869), the Astronomer Copernicus, or Conversations with God (1873), or the Battle of Grunwald (1878). He was the author of numerous portraits, a gallery of Polish monarchs in book form, and murals in St. Mary's Basilica, Kraków. He is considered by many as the most celebrated Polish painter, and sometimes as the "national painter" of Poland. Matejko was among the notable people to receive an unsolicited letter from the German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, as the latter tipped, in January 1889, into his psychotic breakdown while in Turin.

Bronisław Kasper Malinowski was an anthropologist whose writings on ethnography, social theory, and field research were a lasting influence on the discipline of anthropology.

Grzegorz Miecugow was a Polish media personality of Armenian-Georgian descent. He had an extensive career as a journalist, newscaster, editor, and columnist.

Wanda Wasilewska, also known by Russian name Vanda Lvovna Vasilevskaya, was a Polish and Soviet novelist and journalist and a left-wing political activist who became a devoted communist. She fled the German attack on Warsaw in September 1939 and took up residence in Soviet-occupied Lviv and eventually in the Soviet Union. She was the founder of the Union of Polish Patriots there and played an important role in the creation of the Polish 1st Tadeusz Kościuszko Infantry Division. The division developed into the Polish People's Army and fought on the Eastern Front during World War II. Wasilewska was a trusted consultant to Joseph Stalin and her influence was essential to the establishment of the Polish Committee of National Liberation in July 1944, and thus to the formation of the Polish People's Republic.