Year 1353 (MCCCLIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar.

• March 3 – Bern signs an alliance with the Old Swiss Confederacy.
• August 27 – War of the Straits and Sardinian–Aragonese war – The Battle of Alghero results in a crushing victory of the allied Aragonese and Venetian fleet over the Genoese fleet, most of which is captured.^[1]

• The Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta makes the first recorded visit to Timbuktu and Kabara, when returning from a stay in the capital of the Mali Empire.^[2]
• The Decameron is finished by Giovanni Boccaccio.
• The Black Death (1331) subsides.
• The Lao kingdom of Lan Xang is founded by Fa Ngum.

• March – Margaret I of Denmark, queen of Haakon VI of Norway (d. 1412)
• July 15 – Vladimir the Bold, Russian prince (d. 1410)
• date unknown
  • Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1414)
  • Helvis of Brunswick-Grubenhagen, queen consort of Armenia and Cyprus (d. 1421)
  • John Purvey, English scholar and Bible translator (d. 1428)

• February 2 – Anne of Bavaria, queen consort of Bohemia (b. 1329)
• March 6 – Roger Grey, 1st Baron Grey de Ruthyn
• March 11 – Theognostus, metropolitan of Kiev and Moscow
• April 27 – Simeon of Russia, Grand Prince of Moscow and Vladimir
• October 4 – Rudolf II, Duke of Bavaria (b. 1306)
• November or December – Togha Temür, claimant to the throne of the Mongol Il-Khanate in Persia (assassinated)
• date unknown
  • Matilda, daughter of King Robert the Bruce of Scotland
  • Elisabeth of Austria, Duchess of Lorraine, regent of Lorraine
  • Sir Ulick Burke, Irish nobleman