Ferdinand Freiherr von Richthofen (5 May 18336 October 1905), better known in English as was a German traveller, geographer, and scientist. He is noted for coining the terms "Seidenstraße" and "Seidenstraßen" = "Silk Road(s)" or "Silk Route(s)" in 1877. He also standardized the practices of chorography and chorology.

Biography

Ferdinand von Richthofen was born in Pokój, at that time called Carlsruhe in Prussian Silesia. He was educated in the Roman Catholic Gymnasium in Breslau.

He studied medicine at the University of Breslau and at the Humboldt University of Berlin. He traveled or studied in the Alps of Tyrol and the Carpathians in Transylvania.

In 1860, he joined the Eulenburg Expedition, a Prussian expedition which visited Ceylon, Japan, Taiwan, Celebes, Java, the Philippines, Siam, Burma between 1860 and 1862. No important work resulted from these travels, for much of Richthofen's records and collections was lost. China was at the time inaccessible owing to the Taiping Rebellion, but Richthofen was impressed with the desirability of exploring it.

From 1862 to 1868, he worked as a geologist in the United States, discovering goldfields in California. He then followed up his interest in mainland China by several more trips there, and also to Japan, Burma, and Java. In China he located the dried-up lake bed of Lopnur.

He published his geographical, geological, economic, and ethnological findings in three volumes with an atlas, which, however, did not cover the entire field or complete the author's plan. This work appeared at Berlin in 1877-85 under the title of China: Ergebnisse eigener Reisen und darauf gegründeter Studien. In this standard work, the author deals not only with geology but with every subject necessary to a general geographical treatise. Notably he paid close attention to the economic resources of the country he traversed. He also wrote a valuable series of letters to the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce, and first drew attention to the importance of the coalfields of China's Shandong province, and of Kiaochow (Jiaozhou) as a port.

Publications

In German

  • “Die Kalkalpen von Vorarlberg und Nordtirol” in Jahrbuch der geologischen Reichsanstalt; 1859–1861
  • “Die Metallproduktion Kaliforniens” in Petermanns Mitteilungen; 1865
  • China, Ergebnisse eigner Reisen und darauf gegründeter Studien (China: The results of my travels and the studies based thereon), 1877–1912, 5 vols. and atlas
  • Aufgaben und Methoden der heutigen Geographie (an address delivered at Leipzig, 1883)
  • Führer für Forschungsreisende (A guide for the traveling researcher), Berlin, 1886
  • Triebkräfte und Richtungen der Erdkunde in neunzehnten Jahrhundert (address on his election as rector, Berlin, 1903)

In English

  • Comstock Lode: Its Character, and the Probable Mode of Its Continuance in Depth (1866)
  • Principles of the Natural System of Volcanic Rocks (1867)
  • Letters to the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce (1869–72)
  • Richthofen, F. (1872). Letter from Baron Richthofen on the Province of Hunan. Shanghai: Re-printed at the "Ching-foong" Printing Office. State Library of New South Wales, TQ047868
  • Richthofen, F. (1872). Letter by Baron von Richthofen on the provinces of Chili, Shansi, Shensi, Sz'-chwan, with notes on Mongolia, Kansu, Yünnan and Kwei-chau. no. 7. Shanghai: Re-printed at the "Ching-foong" Printing Office. State Library of New South Wales, TQ047868
  • Richthofen, F. (1872). Letter by Baron von Richthofen, from Si-ngan-fu, on the rebellion in Kansu and Shensi. No. 6. Shanghai: Printed at the office of the 'North-China Herald'. State Library of New South Wales, TQ047868

Notes

References

  • Hans-Dietrich Schultz: Ferdinand von Richthofen: The True Founder of Modern Geography?. In: Die Erde: Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu Berlin. Volume 138, Issue 4 (2007), Special Issue "Ferdinand von Richtofen", pp. 333–352. (online)
  • Ute Wardenga: Ferdinand von Richthofen - Then and Now. An Introduction. In: Die Erde: Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu Berlin. Volume 138, Issue 4 (2007), Special Issue "Ferdinand von Richtofen", pp. 301–311. (online)
  • Ute Wardenga: Ferdinand von Richthofen and the Development of German Geography. In: Die Erde: Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu Berlin. Volume 138, Issue 4 (2007), Special Issue "Ferdinand von Richtofen", pp. 313–332. (online)