Statues of Famous People in the UK, USA, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, HK, Australia, S Africa and more

Statues of favourite, famous people as well as religious figures and heroes and heroines of mythology are all around.  

You can sit next to comedian Spike Milligan in a pleasant park in Finchley, NW London, or pose beside author Oscar Wilde right in the city centre near Trafalgar Square.

For inspiration sit beside Einstein in Washington DC. A replica is in the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Jerusalem, Israel. In the USA another statue of Einstain which you can sit next to is in Los Angeles at the Griffith Observatory.

The giant statue of Abraham Lincoln sits in the USA in Washington DC. Another one is in London, England.

Statues In London

Nelson's column is a landmark in Trafalgar Square. You need to set your camera to multiply times three to get more detail. 

The world has many statues of Queen Victoria, royals, world famous figures, and local heroes. 

In London we have statues of Oscar Wilde and  Amy Winehouse. I have a book just on statues of London.

A temporary Freddy Mercury memorial picture is on the Spanish steps at Wembley, London, England, in the autumn of 2026. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy4z8mzx7gwo

Shakespeare's bust is outside the free Guildhall Art Gallery in Guildhall Yard in London. 

Engineer Brunel sits on Paddington station. the other side of the station is a small statue of Paddington Bear.

A statue of Sigmund Freud is in Hampstead.

Statues in England

A statue of Queen Elizabeth II with her corgi dogs is in Rutland, England.

Another is in Newcastle-under-Lyme in Queens Gardens, England.

Another is on York Minster, in York, England.

Statues In Canada

A statue of Queen Elizabeth II is in Toronto, Canada.

A statue of Queen Victoria is on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.

Statues of several Canadian Prime Ministers are on Parliament Path.

USA Statues

Visitors to New York are greeted by the giant Statue of Liberty. Other popular places include the Lincoln Memorial. 

Mount Rushmore in South Dakota is well known. A more recent mountain carving is Crazy Horse.

A statue of Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point, was placed in Times Square, New York, on September 10th 2026, the first anniversary of his death.

Australian Statues

Captain Cook statues are in Sydney and Melbourne.

New Zealand Statues

A statue of Queen Victoria is in Auckland.

A statue of Captain James Cook is in Christchurch. I nearly got run over by a tram, as I was trying to photograph the statue, backing across the road to get it all in.

Czech Republic

See the statue of Kafka.

Singapore Statues

Singapore has a statue of Sir Stamford Raffles. Many more outdoors statues include a bird, a horse, and children jumping into the water. The giant statue of the mythical Merlion spouts water. A plaque honours writer Joseph Conrad.

In Madame Tussauds on Sentosa Island you can see Lee Kuan Yew.

South African Statues

Statues of Mandela are everywhere, Cape Town, Pretoria, Durban, and Nelson Mandela Square, Johannesburg and more. You can also see a bust of Mandela in London.

Classics - The Three Muses

 2 The Three Graces by Canova, neoclassical sculptor (1757-1822)

 The Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia,

a) The Three Graces by Canova in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England, UK

National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh (jointly owned, moving between these two museums), UK

The Muses Classical Antiquity (Roman)

a) The Vatican Museums, Rome, Italy 

b) The Prado, Madrid, Spain

PS

Google found me these statues of Einstein

Several notable statues and memorials around the world honor Albert Einstein:

• Albert Einstein Memorial (Washington, D.C., USA): Created by sculptor Robert Berks and located at the National Academy of Sciences, this massive, 12-foot bronze statue depicts Einstein seated on a three-step granite bench with a paper displaying his equations ($E = mc^2$, the photoelectric effect, and general relativity).

• Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Jerusalem, Israel): A bronze sculpture created by Georgy Frangulyan stands at the Edmond J. Safra Campus, honoring Einstein's role as one of the founders of the university.

• Rosengarten (Bern, Switzerland): A statue located in Bern's Rose Garden park commemorates the city where Einstein developed his Special Theory of Relativity while working at the Swiss Patent Office.

• Walhalla Temple (Donaustauf, Germany): A bust sculpted by Ulrich Uhlig is displayed inside this hall of fame honoring distinguished Germans.

• Parque México (Mexico City, Mexico): A bronze bust sculpted by Tosia Malamud stands in the Condesa neighborhood.

• University of South Alabama (Mobile, Alabama, USA): Features the "Einstein Bench," a bronze sculpture depicting Einstein sitting on an outdoor campus bench.

• Questacon (Canberra, Australia): A prominent Albert Einstein statue marks the entrance to Australia's National Science and Technology Centre.

Worldwide

Useful Websites About Famous People and Statues

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_Hall_of_Fame

https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2017/05/wheres-statue.html

https://www.reutersconnect.com/item/artist-sergio-furnari-reveals-his-statue-of-turning-point-founder-charlie-kirk-in-times-square-in-new-york/

https://www.stephenshouseandgardens.com/visit/spike-milligan-statue

I searched for statues of Freddy Mercury and Bruce Lee worldwide and AI found me these results.

Freddie Mercury (Montreux, Switzerland): A famous 3-meter bronze sculpture by sculptor Irena Sedlecká stands overlooking Lake Geneva. It depicts Mercury in his iconic 1986 Wembley Stadium live pose. [1, 2, 3]

Bruce Lee (Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina): A notable bronze statue of Bruce Lee stands in Zrinjevac Park, erected as a universal symbol of youth, solidarity, and pop culture neutrality across ethnic divides. [1]

Bruce Lee (Hong Kong & Los Angeles): Famous life-sized statues honouring the martial artist exist along the Avenue of Stars in Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong, and at Lincoln Plaza in Los Angeles.

America has many statues, as well as carvings of presidents, such as Mount Rushmore.

-ends-

The Three Xhosa Clicks taught easy!

South Africa has several languages. English. Afrikaans, which is based on Dutch. Xhosa, the language of Nelson Mandela. Zulu.

I remember when I visited South Africa how impressed I was by people who could speak the native languages, and even speak or understand several of them. As for the click language - amazing! I was impressed that local could speak it, and that any multilingual foreigners could learn to speak the language, or even understand it.

When I started investigating the languages I started with Wikipedia. I was impressed to read that as many as 7 million people spoke Xhosa.  The number of African languages even in South Africa alone was daunting. 

However, at the end of the Wikipedia was a chart comparing several languages, showing the translation of the opening paragraph from the constitution. The English was on the left. I could see that with my knowledge of a few words of German, and the ability to follow the similar Dutch words, I could see that Afrikaans would be easy to pick up. 

The other piece of good news was the similarity of the native African languages. Zulu and Xhosa had several words which were almost identical. Another group of three languages were either similar to the first two, or similar to each other. If you knew one language from home and a second from school. You need only study two more to know 8 languages!.

I learned the clicks from this video. first above. Learn easy it says. I would say learn easily, but never mind, I agree that he made the learning easy. Only three sounds. For three letters. C x and q. Sounding like a horse clopping, tut tutting, and so on.

Their other video taught me the word shap.

I started looking at languages to fulfil my dream of being a polyglot (meaning a speaker of multiple languages) by starting a club for Polyglots.

 Click Languages

Practise xhosa sounds with a man

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dw_hBNyi_9c

Some history and world view from a lady

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dw_hBNyi_9c

Famous foreigners in England

Welcoming French au pair girls into my home I was always amazed that they found corners of London which were special to them, honouring their national heroes who I had never heard of. Looking at London, you might be interested in these sites, which could be on the itinerary of a tour. Whether you are a foreigner visiting London, or a resident entertaining overseas visitors, look at these and compile a handy list in your own diary. (I used to have a diary with a map of London at the back.

When I got a new diary without a map, I thought it was a pity that my new diary had no map and the old one was not transferable. I carefully cut out the map out of the old diary and sellotaped it into the new one. You can do the same with any map of the right size. Some diaries and travel notebooks have a space or flap on the back cover to hold a map or printed pages of addresses.

I also photocopy pages from my diary if I want to take just the holiday date pages, and not risk losing my diary. Alternatively take the diary, but leave the photocopy of addresses behind.

List of foreigners visiting the UK and/or with memorials, monuments, place names and burials
Australia - state of Victoria, city of Melbourne named after her minister. In UK memorial to Monash, WWI leader.
Corsica - I remember a Corsican au pair girl who went to visit the memorial in Westminster Abbey to  see the memorial to Corsica's national hero Pasquale di Paoli. He died in England, although his remains were sent back to Corsica and buried there. Corsica is now French, and many people speak French although others speak Italian.

French - Charles Peguy Centre.

India - Mahatma Gandhi in Parliament Square and Tavistock Square.

Malta - Maltese opera star currently in London. Queen Victoria statue in Malta.

New Zealand - Captain Cook and Victoria.

Poland - Polish memorial.

Singapore - Raffles, founder of Singapore, buried in a church in Hendon. In Singapore visit Raffles hotel and see Queen Victoria statue.

South Africa - bust of Mandela on South Bank in London.

Venezuela/ South America : a Venezuelan member of Toastmasters International told that Bolivar visited London. You could trace Bolivar's steps.

You could also do a trace of religious leaders or characters identified with a particular religion from history: eg Anne Frank (UK, Netherlands; Poland; Germany; and Schindler in Poland and Israel; 

Methodists Wesley and the church and cemetery and statue in the East End of London, England - more on Methodists in the USA; Mosques in the UK and overseas; Rothschilds in the UK and Europe; Sassoons in the UK, India and Shanghai, China (plus the HSBC Hong Kong and China Bank); Greek churches in London; Catholic Churches and saints.

Musicians have memorials and statues: George Friderick (spelling is German) Handel (of Germany) came to London - see his statue in Vauxhall Gardens, plaques and the organ he played in a church. His Handel's Messiah is a popular piece.

Another route to follow would be authors or characters from books you have read: eg authors (several books on authors and author trails in the UK); Anne Frank, Robert Louis Stevenson; Dickens; Jane Austen; Mollie Brown (Titanic, USA).

You can do the reverse in another country you are visiting, looking for statues and history relating to your homeland. For example, statues of Queen Victoria in other countries can serve as landmarks and help you remember squares. These are just the obvious ones. You will find many more.