List of Famous people born in Päijänne Tavastia, Finland

Valtteri Viktor Bottas is a Finnish racing driver currently competing in Formula One with Mercedes, racing under the Finnish flag. Having previously driven for Williams from 2013 to 2016. Bottas has won nine races, three in 2017, four in 2019 and two in 2020, since joining Mercedes.

Pekka Lagerblom is a Finnish former professional footballer who played as a midfielder. Notably, he won the German double of Bundesliga and DFB-Pokal with Werder Bremen in 2004.

Jari Olavi Litmanen is a Finnish former footballer. He was the first-choice captain of the Finland national team between 1996 and 2008 in an international career that ran from 1989 to 2010.

Ville Juhana Haapasalo is a Finnish stage and film actor who has worked in Finland and Russia. His acting career started in 1995, after he finished his studies in St. Petersburg. In 2003, he was honored with the State Prize of the Russian Federation for his role of Veikko in the film The Cuckoo directed by Aleksandr Rogozhkin.

Aki Olavi Kaurismäki is a Finnish screenwriter and film director. He is best known for the award-winning Drifting Clouds (1996), The Man Without a Past (2002), Le Havre (2011) and The Other Side of Hope (2017), as well as for the mockumentary Leningrad Cowboys Go America (1989). He is described as Finland's best-known film director.

Janne Petteri Ahonen is a Finnish former ski jumper and drag racer. He competed in ski jumping between 1992 and 2018, and is one of the sport's most successful athletes of all time, as well as one of the most successful from Finland. Ahonen won two consecutive World Cup overall titles, the Four Hills Tournament a record five times, two individual gold medals at the World Championships, and the Nordic Tournament once. Nicknamed Kuningaskotka, he has been described as the greatest ski jumper to have never won an individual medal at the Winter Olympics.

Adolf Ivar Arwidsson was a Finnish political journalist, writer and historian. His writing was critical of Finland's status at the time as a Grand Duchy under the Russian Tsars. Its sharpness cost him his job as a lecturer at The Royal Academy of Turku and he had to emigrate to Sweden, where he continued his political activity. The Finnish national movement considered Arwidsson the mastermind of an independent Finland.

Toni Markus Nieminen is a Finnish former ski jumper who competed from 1991 to 2004, with a brief comeback in 2016. He is one of the most successful contemporary ski jumpers from Finland, having won both the World Cup overall title and the Four Hills Tournament in 1992, and three medals at the 1992 Winter Olympics. He remains the youngest ever Winter Olympic gold medalist, at 16 years and 261 days. Additionally, he is known for being the first male ski jumper to land a jump surpassing 200 metres (660 ft), which he achieved in 1994 with a world record of 203 m (666 ft) on the ski flying hill in Planica.

Veikko Heinonen was a Finnish former ski jumper who competed in the 1950s, winning a silver medal at the 1954 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships on the large hill in Falun.

Mika Juhani Kaurismäki is a Finnish film director.