List of Famous people born in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

Alice Sophie Schwarzer is a German journalist and prominent contemporary feminist. She is founder and publisher of the German feminist journal EMMA, and a columnist of Germany's best-selling tabloid Bild.

Jürgen Rüttgers is a german politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who served as the 9th Minister President of North Rhine-Westphalia from 2005 to 2010.

Florian, Count Henckel von Donnersmarck is a German film director, best known for writing and directing the 2006 Oscar-winning dramatic thriller The Lives of Others, the 2010 three time Golden Globe nominated romantic thriller The Tourist starring Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp, and the two-time Oscar-nominated 2018 epic drama Never Look Away.

Patrick Wiencek is a German handballer for THW Kiel and the German national team.

Elke Aberle is a German actress.

Diana Staehly is a German actress.

Arne Friedrich is a German football coach and former football defender. He is currently the Performance Manager of Hertha BSC.

Adnan Ćatić, best known as Felix Sturm, is a German-Bosnian professional boxer. He has held multiple world championships in two weight classes, including the WBO middleweight title from 2003 to 2004, the WBA middleweight title twice between 2006 and 2012, the IBF middleweight title from 2013 to 2014, and the WBA (Super) super-middleweight title in 2016. As an amateur, Sturm won a gold medal at the 2000 European Championships in the light-middleweight division.

Olaf Thon is a German former professional football player and coach.

Reint E. Gropp is a German economist, the President of the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) as well as professor of economics at Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg. His fields of research cover financial economics, macroeconomics, corporate finance as well as money and banking.