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Universities and Notable Alumni

Two joinable datasets measuring which institutions manufacture history's notable people, built by running Wikidata's educated-at property in reverse: 33,345 higher-education institutions across 340 countries and territories, with 2.93 million alumni links counted. Notability comes in two honest tiers: Notable_Alumni counts every person with a Wikidata entry educated there, and Wikipedia_Alumni requires an English Wikipedia article, because raw graph counts reward mass imports (Tartu's historical matriculation registers put the Imperial University of Dorpat above MIT until the stricter tier demoted it to rank 444). Harvard leads both: 25,255 notable alumni, 15,420 with articles, 75 Nobel laureates, 50 heads of state or government and 33 billionaires, though Stanford out-mints it on billionaires at 40. Each institution carries country, city, type, founding year (Bologna 1088, al-Azhar 970), coordinates, students, staff, endowment with currency and date, gender splits (Wellesley 99.6% female, Sandhurst 0.0%), alumni by birth century so the machine's output can be watched through time, and a Parent_Institution roll-up so Oxford's 61 colleges, holding 27,774 alumni among them, can be reassembled into the university their graduates actually name. The companion file maps six elite cohorts person by person, mined from the small side of the graph: Nobel laureates by prize with award year, heads of state and government by office, astronauts, Fields medalists, Turing laureates and USD billionaires, the currency unit checked so a trillion-yen fortune cannot sneak in. Built with a 23-test acceptance suite anchored on Harvard's bench, Marie Curie's two Nobel rows and the Oxbridge roll-up.
43,835 rows 2 joinable files last pulled 2026-09-12
Source: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page
Universities 33,345 rows × 33 columns
UniversityUniversity_IDCountryCityTypeParent_InstitutionParent_Institution_IDFounded_YearLatitudeLongitudeStudentsStudents_YearAcademic_StaffEndowmentEndowment_CurrencyEndowment_YearNotable_AlumniWikipedia_AlumniFemale_AlumniMale_AlumniFemale_Alumni_PercentAlumni_Born_Pre_1800Alumni_Born_1800sAlumni_Born_1900sAlumni_Born_2000sNobel_LaureatesHeads_Of_State_Or_GovAstronautsFields_MedalistsTuring_LaureatesBillionairesFamous_AlumniUniversity_URL
Famous Alumni 10,490 rows × 12 columns
PersonPerson_IDUniversityUniversity_IDCohortDetailYearGenderBirth_YearDeath_YearCountryPerson_URL

Questions and answers

What is the Universities and Notable Alumni dataset?

Two joinable datasets measuring which institutions manufacture history's notable people, built by running Wikidata's educated-at property in reverse: 33,345 higher-education institutions across 340 countries and territories, with 2.93 million alumni links counted. Notability comes in two honest tiers: Notable_Alumni counts every person with a Wikidata entry educated there, and Wikipedia_Alumni requires an English Wikipedia article, because raw graph counts reward mass imports (Tartu's historical matriculation registers put the Imperial University of Dorpat above MIT until the stricter tier demoted it to rank 444). Harvard leads both: 25,255 notable alumni, 15,420 with articles, 75 Nobel laureates, 50 heads of state or government and 33 billionaires, though Stanford out-mints it on billionaires at 40. Each institution carries country, city, type, founding year (Bologna 1088, al-Azhar 970), coordinates, students, staff, endowment with currency and date, gender splits (Wellesley 99.6% female, Sandhurst 0.0%), alumni by birth century so the machine's output can be watched through time, and a Parent_Institution roll-up so Oxford's 61 colleges, holding 27,774 alumni among them, can be reassembled into the university their graduates actually name. The companion file maps six elite cohorts person by person, mined from the small side of the graph: Nobel laureates by prize with award year, heads of state and government by office, astronauts, Fields medalists, Turing laureates and USD billionaires, the currency unit checked so a trillion-yen fortune cannot sneak in. Built with a 23-test acceptance suite anchored on Harvard's bench, Marie Curie's two Nobel rows and the Oxbridge roll-up.

How big is the Universities and Notable Alumni dataset?

43,835 rows across 2 joinable files, with 45 columns in total: University, University_ID, Country, City, Type, Parent_Institution, Parent_Institution_ID, Founded_Year, Latitude, Longitude, Students, Students_Year, Academic_Staff, Endowment, Endowment_Currency, Endowment_Year, Notable_Alumni, Wikipedia_Alumni, Female_Alumni, Male_Alumni, Female_Alumni_Percent, Alumni_Born_Pre_1800, Alumni_Born_1800s, Alumni_Born_1900s, Alumni_Born_2000s, Nobel_Laureates, Heads_Of_State_Or_Gov, Astronauts, Fields_Medalists, Turing_Laureates, Billionaires, Famous_Alumni, University_URL, Person, Person_ID, University, University_ID, Cohort, Detail, Year....

Where does the data come from?

It is built by programmatically scraping wikidata.org, last pulled on 2026-09-12. Datasets are versioned; older versions stay downloadable.

Is the dataset free to download?

Yes. Every CodeSights dataset is completely free as a CSV download; a free account is all it takes. Anyone can preview the data without signing in.

Can I see the code that built this dataset?

Yes. The exact Python scraper that built it is viewable on the dataset page by any signed-in member, so every number is reproducible.

How do the files join?

Join the files on University_ID (famous_alumni.University_ID = universities.University_ID); Famous_Alumni on the universities file says how many famous-alumni rows to expect.

Can the data contain errors?

Automated scraping leaves room for error and the underlying sources change over time, so no version is guaranteed accurate or complete. If a number matters, verify it against the original source.

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