2 August 1829 – 8 January 1904) was an Austro-Hungarian naturalist, geographer, ethnographer, archaeologist, painter and author of travel notes, of Jewish heritage.

Kanitz was born in Pest to a rich Jewish family and enrolled in art in the University of Vienna in 1846, at the age of seventeen.

He settled in Vienna in 1856 and undertook a journey to Dalmatia in the Balkans in 1858, which marked the beginning of his thorough research of the South Slavs.

Apart from Dalmatia, he also visited Herzegovina, Bosnia, Kingdom of Montenegro, Serbia and Bulgaria.

A good painter and drawer, Kanitz was also the author of a number of black and white drawings related to the life in the Balkans.