Ferdinand von Richthofen

Paul Wilhelm Ferdinand von Richthofen (May 5th 1833 - October 6th 1905) is a geographer and German geologist .

Von Richthofen is born with Carlsruhe, nowadays located in Poland. He studies with Berlin. During its career it becomes one of the most famous geographers in the world. It is more known general public for its invention of the term Silk route to indicate the ways of transit of the trade Asia - Europe during many centuries.

Voyages

Of 1856 with 1859 it makes research on the geology of the the Tyrol then of the Transylvania. In 1860 it takes part in a forwarding in China of which it briefly studies first once the Géologie, it does not remain trace of work of Richthofen on this voyage. In the medium of the Années 1860 it visits the California to analyze the relations between gold and ashes ic Volcan , it remains with the the United States of 1862 with 1868.

From 1868 with 1872 Richthofen turns over in Asia, it again visits China but also the Japan, Borneo and Java. This study is financed by the bank of California and the bank of Shanghai. It is interested in the sites of the important layers such as those of coal. Its geographical studies , geological, economic and ethnographic are published in 3 volumes and an atlas. The first volume describes the mountains of Asia, the second China of north and the third that of the south but Richthofen will not have time to finish it. He writes also a series of letters to the chamber of commerce of Shanghai in which he points the importance of the layers of coal of Shantung as well as importance of Kiaochow like port. Three other posthumous volumes are published in 1911 and 1912. This research is useful for the comprehension of Asia by Europeans.

University career

Richthofen is professor of geology to the university of Berlin of 1875 with 1877 then with the Université of Bonn until in 1883, professor of geography to Leipzig of 1883 with 1886 then again with Berlin as from 1886. He is president of the Company of German geography and the first president of the Institute für Meereskunde -- the institute of oceanography of 1902 with 1905. The Geological Society off London decrees the to him Médaille Wollaston in 1892.

Geography according to Richthofen

To have taken shortly after its station in Leipzig in 1883 Richthofen defines what for him the Géographie is. This definition will not be the last but it influences many geographers of Germany and has also an unquestionable repercussion beyond its borders. For Richthofen the geography must describe the physical characteristics of the surface of the Ground and the relations between these characteristics and other specificities of this surface including the men. This description must be made through a study detailed of small geographical units and a comparative study of larger surfaces. Just like Varen, Richthofen thinks that the geography must be at the same time descriptive and led by laws. To build general laws the geographer must study on the ground of the particular cases. The chorography must describe these features while the chorology must explain the corographic distributions of the features by examining the causes and the relations of these phenomena. Richthofen taking as a starting point Raven names this part the special geography . Starting from the chorology the geographer must build general laws and assumptions on the local characteristics and their relations, always taking as a starting point Raven it names this part the geography general . Richthofen thus sees the geography like a whole made up of two components: the description of phenomenon single is necessary to build generalizations which are in their turn necessary to include/understand the phenomena.

Publications

Apart from these books on the China:

Die Kalkalpen von Voralberg und Nordtirol in Jahrbuch DER geologischen Rei chsanst all , 1859 - 1861
Die Metallproduktion Kaliforniens in Petermanns Mitteilungen , 1865
Natural System off Volcanic Rock'n'rolls , San Francisco 1867
Aufgaben und Met hoden DER heutigen Geography , a made reading with Leipzig in 1883
Führer für Forschungsreisende , Berlin 1886
Triebkrafte und Richtungen der Erdkunde in neunzehnten Jahrhundert , conference given at the time of its election as vice-chancellor to Berlin in 1903

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