# Fame.am profile — machine-readable export
# Canonical URL: https://fame.am/person/jan-vansina
# Generated: 2026-08-13T21:08:05.352Z

schema: https://schema.org/Person
url: "https://fame.am/person/jan-vansina"
name: "Jan Vansina"
slug: "jan-vansina"
description: "Jan M. J. Vansina was a Belgian historian and anthropologist regarded as an authority on the history of Central Africa, especially of what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi. He was a major innovator in the historical methodology of oral tradition. As a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, he taught several generations of students and, according to a biographer, \"set the pace in African historical studies from the 1950s into the 1990s.\""
tagline: "Belgian historian and anthropologist (1929–2017)"
gender: "male"
category:
  name: "Academics"
  slug: "academics"
profileType:
  name: "Academic"
  slug: "academic"
  entityType: "https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q39631"
birthDate: "1929-09-14"
deathDate: "2017-02-08"
livingStatus: "DECEASED"
scores:
  popularity:           45.48
  momentum:             0
  historical:           9.434848
  currentAttention:     0
  sourceConfidence:     65
  profileCompleteness:  50
  trendDirection:       "FALLING"
ranks:
  global:   null
  country:  null
  category: null
platforms:
  - platform:  "WEBSITE"
    url:       "https://janvansina.africa.wisc.edu/"
sources:
  - url: "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jan_Vansina"
    title: "Wikiquote"
    type:  "WEBSITE"
  - url: "https://arz.wikipedia.org/wiki/%DA%86%D8%A7%D9%86_%DA%A4%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%B3%D9%8A%D9%86%D8%A7"
    title: "چان ڤانسينا"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Vansina"
    title: "Jan Vansina"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Vansina"
    title: "Jan Vansina"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Vansina"
    title: "Jan Vansina"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Vansina"
    title: "Jan Vansina"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://lb.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Vansina"
    title: "Jan Vansina"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%AF%E0%B4%BE%E0%B5%BB_%E0%B4%B5%E0%B4%BE%E0%B5%BB%E0%B4%B8%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%A8"
    title: "യാൻ വാൻസിന"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Vansina"
    title: "Jan Vansina"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%B0%D0%BD%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B0%2C_%D0%AF%D0%BD"
    title: "Вансина, Ян"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Vansina"
    title: "Jan Vansina"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q981217"
    title: "Wikidata"
    type:  "WIKIDATA"

# bio (long form, separated for readability)
bio: |
  Imported from discovery source: wikidata-dump