1783 map of the world showing the distribution of mammals

Eberhardt August Wilhelm von Zimmermann (August 17, 1743,

Uelzen Uelzen (; ), officially the Hanseatic City of Uelzen (), is a town in northeast Lower Saxony, Germany, and capital of the district of Uelzen. It is part of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region, a Hanseatic town and an independent municipality. Uelz ...

– July 4, 1815,

Braunschweig Braunschweig () or Brunswick ( ; from Low German , local dialect: ) is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the ...

) was a German

geographer A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society, including how society and nature interacts. The Greek prefix "geo" means "earth" a ...

and

zoologist Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the structure, embryology, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct, and how they interact with their ecosystems. Zoology is one ...

. He studied

natural philosophy Natural philosophy or philosophy of nature (from Latin ''philosophia naturalis'') is the philosophical study of physics, that is, nature and the physical universe, while ignoring any supernatural influence. It was dominant before the develop ...

and

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

Leiden Leiden ( ; ; in English language, English and Archaism, archaic Dutch language, Dutch also Leyden) is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Nethe ...

, Halle,

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, and

Göttingen Göttingen (, ; ; ) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. According to the 2022 German census, t ...

, and in 1766, was appointed professor of mathematics and

natural sciences Natural science or empirical science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer ...

at the Collegium Carolinum in Braunschweig. One of his pupils was mathematician

Carl Friedrich Gauss Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (; ; ; 30 April 177723 February 1855) was a German mathematician, astronomer, geodesist, and physicist, who contributed to many fields in mathematics and science. He was director of the Göttingen Observatory and ...

.Natural History - Princeton University Library
/ref> From 1789 onward, he served as aulic councillor in Braunschweig.
at Deutsche BiographieThibaut - Zycha, Volume 10
by K. G. Saur Verlag GmbH & Company, Walter De Gruyter Incorporated During his career, he travelled widely throughout Europe —

Livonia Livonia, known in earlier records as Livland, is a historical region on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea. It is named after the Livonians, who lived on the shores of present-day Latvia. By the end of the 13th century, the name was extende ...

, Russia, Sweden, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. On his journeys, he conducted research of economic conditions and natural resources. He wrote ''Specimen Zoologiae Geographicae Quadrupedum'' (1777), one of the first works on the geographical distribution of

mammal A mammal () is a vertebrate animal of the Class (biology), class Mammalia (). Mammals are characterised by the presence of milk-producing mammary glands for feeding their young, a broad neocortex region of the brain, fur or hair, and three ...

s (

zoogeography Zoogeography is the branch of the science of biogeography that is concerned with geographic distribution (present and past) of animal species. As a multifaceted field of study, zoogeography incorporates methods of molecular biology, genetics, mo ...

). In 1794, he was elected to the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

. He was the author of works on a variety of subjects, such as mathematics, natural sciences, regional studies, and the history of discovery. From 1802 to 1813, he published the ''Taschenbuch der Reisen'' (''Handbook of Travel'').

Published works

* ''Geographische Geschichte des Menschen und der allgemein verbreiteten vierfüssigen Thiere'', 3 volumes (1779–1783) – eographical history of humans and the general distribution of quadrupeds * ''Über die Elastizität des Wassers'', 1779 – n the elasticity of water * * ''Frankreich und die Freistaaten von Nordamerika'', (part I, 1795; part II, 1800) – rance and the free states of North America">North_America.html" ;"title="rance and the free states of North America">rance and the free states of North America * ''Die Erde und ihre Bewohner. Ein Lesebuch für Geographie, Völkerkunde, Produktenlehre und den Handel'', 5 volumes (1810–1814) – [The earth and its inhabitants. A reading book of geography, ethnology, etc].Catalog HathiTrust
published works

References

Biography A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or curri ...

Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB; ) is one of the most important and comprehensive biographical reference works in the German language. It was published by the Historical Commission of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences between 1875 and 1912 in 56 volumes, printed in Lei ...

(in German) *Petra Feuerstein-Herz, 2004 Eberhard August Wilhelm von Zimmermann (1743-1815) und die Tiergeographie. Dissertation Braunschweig.

External links

Zoologica

Göttingen State and University Library The Göttingen State and University Library ( or SUB Göttingen) is the library for Göttingen University as well as for the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and is the state library for the German State of Lower Saxony. One of the largest German ...

German geographers 18th-century German zoologists Academic staff of TU Braunschweig Honorary members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences People from Uelzen 1743 births 1815 deaths International members of the American Philosophical Society {{Germany-zoologist-stub