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1) Ritter, Karl. The Columbia Encyclopedia,
...Ritter, Karl, 1779-1859, German geographer, a founder of modern human geography. He was a professor of geography at the Univ. of Berlin from 1820. He helped define...6) geography. The Columbia Encyclopedia,
...geography began toward the end of the 18th cent. with the works of Alexander von Humboldt and Karl Ritter. Thenceforth two principal methods of approach to geography...
Comparative Geography (1852) was translated into English in 1865 and 1881.
Die Erdkunde (2 vol., 1817–18), was revised and enlarged in the second edition (19 vol., 1822–59).
from 1911 Encyclopedia
RITTER, KARL (1779-1859), German geographer, was born at Quedlinburg on the 7th of August 1779, and died in Berlin on the 28th of September 1859. His father, a physician, left his family in straitened circumstances, and Karl was received into the Schnepfenthal institution then just founded by Christian Gotthilf Salzmann (1744-1811) for the purpose of testing his educational theories. The Salzmann system was practically that of Rousseau; conformity to natural law and enlightenment were its watchwords; great attention was given to practical life; and the modern languages were carefully taught, to the complete exclusion of Latin and Greek. Ritter already showed geographical aptitude, and when his schooldays were drawing to a close his future course was determined by an introduction to Bethmann Hollweg, a banker in Frankfort. It was arranged that Ritter should become tutor to Hollwegs children, but that in the meantime he should attend the university at his patrons expense. His duties as tutor in the Hollweg family began at Frankfort in 1798 and continued for fifteen years. The years 181419, which he spent at Gottingen in order still to watch over the welfare of his pupils, were those in which he began to devote himself exclusively to geographical inquiries. He had already travelled extensively in Europe when in i8 1718 he brought out his first masterpiece, Die Erdkunde irn Verhaltnis zur Na~ur und zur Geschichte des Mensclien (Berlin, 2 vols., 1817 1818). In 1819 he became professor of history at Frankfort, and in 1820 professor extraordinarius of history at Berlin, where shortly afterwards he began also to lecture at the military college. He remained in this position till his death. The second edition of his Erdkunde (182 258) was conceived on a much larger scale than. the first, but he completed only the sections on Africa and the various countries of Asia. The service rendered to geography by Ritter was especially notable because he brought to his work a new conception of the subject. Geography was, to use his own expression, a kind of physiology and comparative anatomy of the earth: rivers, mountains, glaciers, &c., were so many distinct organs, each with its own appropriate functions; and, as his physical frame is the basis of the man, determinative to a large extent of his life, so -the structure of each country is a leading element in the historic progress of the nation. Moreover, Ritter was a scientific compiler of the first rank. Among his minor works may be mentioned Vorhalle europaischer Volkergeschichlen vor Herodot (Berlin, 1820); Die Stupas . . . an der indobaktrischen Konigssirasse und die Kolosse von Bamiyan (1838); Einleitung aur ailgemeinen vergleichenden Geographie (Berlin, 1852); ~ Bemerkungen uber Veranschaulichungsmittel rumlicher Verhaltnisse bei graphischen Darstellungen durch Form u. Zahl, in the Trans. of the Berlin Academy, 1828. After his death selections from his lectures were published under the titles Geschichte der Erdkunde (i861), Ailgemeine Erdkunde (1862), and Europa (1863). Several of his works (e.g. the Palestine volumes of his Erdkunde) were translated into English. Karl Ritter foundations were established in his memory at Berlin aild Leipzig, for the furtherance of geographical study.See G. Kramer, Karl Ritter, em Lebensbild (Halle, 1864 and 1870;
2nd ed., 1875); W. L. Gage, The Life of Karl Ritter (London, 1867);
F. Marthe, Was bedeutet Karl Ritter fur die Geographie, in Zeitsch. der Ges.f. Erdk. (Berlin, 1879). All Ritters works mentioned above were published at Berlin.
