Ferdinand von Richthofen
German traveller, geographer and scientist (1833-1905)
Ferdinand Freiherr von Richthofen (5 May 1833 – 6 October 1905), better known in English as Baron von Richthofen, 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.
The public source identifies “Ferdinand von Richthofen” as german traveller, geographer and scientist (1833-1905). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Ferdinand, Richthofen and German.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q76791. VIAF identifies the subject as 88633665. The Library of Congress control number is n84155048. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1833, 1905, 1877 and 1860.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ferdinand von Richthofen” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.