Carl Ritter

German geographer who was cofounder, with Alexander von Humboldt, of modern geographical science.

Guided by the educational principles of the famed Swiss teacher Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi and by the ideas of the German philosopher-theologian Johann Gottfried von Herder on the relation between man and his environment, Ritter became a teacher and philosopher in the field of geography, serving as professor at the University of Berlin from 1820 until the end of his life.

In 1822 Ritter was elected to the Prussian Academy of Sciences, and in 1824 he became a corresponding member of the Société Asiatique de Paris. In 1828, he established the Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu Berlin (Berlin Geographical Society). In 1856, he was appointed curator of the Royal Cartographic Institute of Prussia. He died in Berlin 0n 28 September 1859.

Ritter's impact on geography was especially notable because he brought forth a new conception of the subject. His great work, "Die Erdkunde im Verhältniss zur Natur und zur Geschichte des Menschen" (“Earth Science in Relation to Nature and the History of Man”), was intended as a world survey but was never completed. It ran to 20,000 pages in 19 volumes.