Sten De Geer

Sten De Geer (born April 26, 1886 in Stockholm ; died June 2, 1933 in Gothenburg ) was a Swedish geographer .

Live and act

De Geer studied in Stockholm and Uppsala . In 1911 he received his doctorate with the thesis Klarälfvens serpentinlopp och flodplan on the morphology of the Klarälven , Sweden's longest river that does not flow into the sea. His great preference for maps as an instrument for analyzing geographic data was already evident in this work. At the same time he explored the Dalälven . Interest in the morphology of rivers was later expanded to include lakes and ports. In 1912 he researched the functioning of the most important ports around the Baltic Sea and carried out this research again 15 years later in order to draw conclusions about the development of the ports on the basis of extensive maps. In the continuation of this research the study of the geographical aspects of Greater Stockholm (1922) can be mentioned.

De Geer undertook numerous research trips: Spitzbergen (1908), Bohemia and Silesia (1910), France and Italy (1910/1911), the Baltic Sea (1911), Tyrol (1912), Denmark , Norway and Finland (1921) as well as Germany , Belgium , Great Britain and North America (1922). He taught at Stockholm University from 1911 to 1928 and then at Gothenburg University until his death .

As a cartographer , De Geer experimented with different display methods. The first scientific considerations of the dot method or dot method go back to him. The Swedish population atlas, Karta över Befolkningens Förderling i Sverige , published in 1919 on January 1, 1917, is considered to be the first 'scatter card'.

Sten De Geer was the son of the geographer Gerard De Geer (1858-1943) and Mary Elisabet Erskine (1861-1922). He married Gea Olivia Holm (born December 21, 1889, daughter of Gerhard Holm and Fredrika Olivia Palmquist) in Stockholm on May 17, 1912, and in 1918 became the father of the geologist Jan De Geer .

Publications

• Klarälfvens serpentinlopp och flodplan , 1911
• Karta över Befolkningens Förderling i Sverige den 1 januari 1917 , 1919
• A Map of the Distribution of Population in Sweden: Method of Preparation and general Results , 1922
• On the Definition, Method and Classification of Geography , 1923
• The kernel area of ​​the Nordic race , 1926
• The American Manufacturing Belt , 1927
• The subtropical belt of old Empires , 1928
• The geological Fennoskandia and the geographical Baltoskandia , 1928

literature

• TW Freeman: The Geographer's Craft. Manchester University Press, 1963. pp. 124 ff.
• De Geer, Sten . In Vem var det? Norstedt, Stockholm 1944, p. 48

Web links

• El W: son Ahlmann: Sten De Geer (biography, Göteborgs Universitetsbibliotek)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Erik Arnberger : Thematic cartography . Westermann-Schulbuchverlag, 1993