Christian Gottlieb Reichard

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Reichards The United States of North America from 1809

Christian Gottlieb Reichard (born June 26, 1758 in Schleiz ; † September 11, 1837 in Lobenstein ) was a German cartographer .

Life

Reichard attended Schleizer high school, studied law in Leipzig and was appointed town clerk in Lobenstein in 1782. The official inauguration took place on January 9, 1783 and Reichard received the title of Syndic in 1805.

Reichard did not seem to have taken up too much of the city's business, because he was able to deal intensively with geography, history and music in his free time, so that he gained more fame in these areas than through his professional activity, which he did in spite of everything not neglected. Reichard's main interests were geography and cartography. As early as 1797 he had constructed a globe for the lessons of his sons, which attracted the attention of the then important mathematician and astronomer von Zach , head of the Seeberg observatory near Gotha. Together with the Legation Councilor Bertuch from Weimar, Zach published the "Allgemeine Geographische Ephemeriden", a geographic trade journal on which Reichard worked from now on, from 1803 even as one of the editors.

In the period that followed, Reichard developed important maps, which he drew and printed with the utmost precision and which made him widely known. He had a lively exchange of ideas with many scholars of his time, so u. a. with Alexander von Humboldt , who found the following words of appreciation for him:

“A German scholar who in his life never saw a river larger than the Saale, Christian Gottlieb Reichard, discovered the truth about the course of African rivers 25 years before the real researchers. I do not understand why Reichard was able to become such a thorough, in-depth geography in his little mountain town in the Reussian Oberland. "

A practical application of Reichard's geographical and cartographic knowledge and skills was a "fire map" that was set up on his instructions on the old tower in Lobenstein. It contained all the locations within a 5-hour radius, and with the help of a dioptre one could easily explain the direction of the affected location from where a glow of fire could be seen.

When Napoleon I passed through Lobenstein in 1805, Reichard was offered to join the French army as an engineer cartographer. However, since he did not intend to accept this offer, he received the two emissaries of Napoleon as bedridden, seriously ill patients, so that they had to leave without having achieved anything.

Works (selection)

  • Atlas of the Whole Earth Circle in Central Projection (1803)
  • North America Charter: According to the latest regulations and discoveries. Weimar 1804.
  • The United States of North America, according to the safest regulations, breaking news and charts, designed in Alber's projection. Homanns Erben, Nuremberg 1809 - probably the oldest published map with Albers cone projection
  • Orbis terrarum antiquus. (Atlas of the Ancient World, 1824)
  • World map based on the Mercator projection. (1825, four parts)
  • Collection of small writings from the field of mathematical and ancient geography. Reichard, Güns 1836. (digitized version)

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Christian Gottlieb Reichard: Atlas of the whole world in the Central Projection ... 1803 [rare North Polar Projection] ( Memento from July 16, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) - illustration of the map

Web links

Commons : Christian Gottlieb Reichard  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Reichard, Christian Gottlieb
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German cartographer and geographer
DATE OF BIRTH June 26, 1758
PLACE OF BIRTH Schleiz
DATE OF DEATH September 11, 1837
Place of death Praise stone