1783 map of the world showing the distribution of mammals

Eberhardt August Wilhelm von Zimmermann (August 17, 1743,

Uelzen Uelzen (; officially the ''Hanseatic Town of Uelzen'', German: ''Hansestadt Uelzen'', , Low German ''Ülz’n'') is a town in northeast Lower Saxony, Germany, and capital of the county of Uelzen. It is part of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region, a ...

– July 4, 1815,

Braunschweig Braunschweig () or Brunswick ( , from Low German ''Brunswiek'' , Braunschweig dialect: ''Bronswiek'') is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the Nor ...

) 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 ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the Animal, animal kingdom, including the anatomy, structure, embryology, evolution, Biological clas ...

. He studied

natural philosophy Natural philosophy or philosophy of nature (from Latin ''philosophia naturalis'') is the philosophical study of physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior throu ...

and

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

Leiden Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration wit ...

, Halle,

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

, and

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) 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. At the end of 2019, t ...

, and in 1766 was appointed professor of mathematics and

natural sciences Natural 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 review and repeatab ...

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

Carl Friedrich Gauss Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (; german: Gauß ; la, Carolus Fridericus Gauss; 30 April 177723 February 1855) was a German mathematician and physicist who made significant contributions to many fields in mathematics and science. Sometimes refer ...

.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 ( liv, Līvõmō, et, Liivimaa, fi, Liivinmaa, German and Scandinavian languages: ', archaic German: ''Liefland'', nl, Lijfland, Latvian and lt, Livonija, pl, Inflanty, archaic English: ''Livland'', ''Liwlandia''; russian: Ли ...

, 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 Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or ...

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), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

. 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) – Geographical history of humans and the general distribution of quadrupeds. * ''Über die Elastizität des Wassers'', 1779 – On the elasticity of water. * * ''Frankreich und die Freistaaten von Nordamerika'', (part I, 1795; part II, 1800) – France and the free states of

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

. * ''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 Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural anthropology, cultural, social anthropolo ...

, 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 the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or ...

Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie ''Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie'' (ADB, german: Universal German Biography) 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 Aca ...

(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 (german: Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen or SUB Göttingen) is the library for Göttingen University as well as for the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and is the state li ...

German geographers 18th-century German zoologists Technical University of Braunschweig faculty Honorary members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences People from Uelzen 1743 births 1815 deaths {{Germany-zoologist-stub