184 boulevard saint germain (societe de geographie)

The Société de Géographie (; ), is the world's oldest geographical society. It was founded in 1821 as the first Geographic Society. Since 1878, its headquarters have been at 184

Boulevard Saint-Germain Boulevard Saint-Germain () is a major street in Paris on the Rive Gauche of the Seine. It curves in a 3.5-kilometre (2.1 miles) arc from the Pont de Sully in the east (the bridge at the edge of Île Saint-Louis) to the Pont de la Concorde ( ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

. The entrance is marked by two gigantic

caryatid A caryatid ( or or ; grc, Καρυᾶτις, pl. ) is a sculpted female figure serving as an architectural support taking the place of a column or a pillar supporting an entablature on her head. The Greek term ''karyatides'' literally means "ma ...

s representing ''Land'' and ''Sea''. It was here, in 1879, that the construction of the

Panama Canal The Panama Canal ( es, Canal de Panamá, link=no) is an artificial waterway in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean and divides North and South America. The canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and is a condui ...

was decided.

History

The Geographical Society was founded at a meeting on 15 December 1821 in the Paris Hôtel de Ville. Among its 217 founders were some of the greatest scientific names of the time, including

Pierre-Simon Laplace Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace (; ; 23 March 1749 – 5 March 1827) was a French scholar and polymath whose work was important to the development of engineering, mathematics, statistics, physics, astronomy, and philosophy. He summarize ...

(the Society's first president),

Georges Cuvier Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, Baron Cuvier (; 23 August 1769 – 13 May 1832), known as Georges Cuvier, was a French naturalist and zoologist, sometimes referred to as the "founding father of paleontology". Cuvier was a major figure in na ...

, Charles Pierre Chapsal,

Vivant Denon Dominique Vivant, Baron Denon (4 January 1747 – 27 April 1825) was a French artist, writer, diplomat, author, and archaeologist. Denon was a diplomat for France under Louis XV and Louis XVI. He was appointed as the first Director of the Louvre ...

Joseph Fourier Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier (; ; 21 March 1768 – 16 May 1830) was a French mathematician and physicist born in Auxerre and best known for initiating the investigation of Fourier series, which eventually developed into Fourier analysis and ha ...

, Gay-Lussac,

Claude Louis Berthollet Claude Louis Berthollet (, 9 December 1748 – 6 November 1822) was a Savoyard-French chemist who became vice president of the French Senate in 1804. He is known for his scientific contributions to theory of chemical equilibria via the mecha ...

Alexander von Humboldt Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (14 September 17696 May 1859) was a German polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister ...

, Champollion, and

François-René de Chateaubriand François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand (4 September 1768 – 4 July 1848) was a French writer, politician, diplomat and historian who had a notable influence on French literature of the nineteenth century. Descended from an old aristocrati ...

. Most of the men who had accompanied Bonaparte in his Egyptian expedition were members:

Edme-François Jomard Edme-François Jomard (; 1777 – September 22, 1862) was a French cartographer, engineer, and archaeologist. He edited the ''Description de L'Égypte'' and was a member of the Institut d'Egypte established by Napoleon. He supervised the educati ...

Conrad Malte-Brun Conrad Malte-Brun (12 August 177514 December 1826), born Malthe Conrad Bruun, and sometimes referred to simply as Malte-Brun, was a Dano-French geographer and journalist. His second son, Victor Adolphe Malte-Brun, was also a geographer. Today he ...

Jules Dumont d'Urville Jules Sébastien César Dumont d'Urville (; 23 May 1790 – 8 May 1842) was a French explorer and naval officer who explored the south and western Pacific, Australia, New Zealand, and Antarctica. As a botanist and cartographer, he gave his nam ...

, Jules Paul Benjamin Delessert, Hottinguer,

Henri Didot Didot is the name of a family of French printers, punch-cutters and publishers. Through its achievements and advancements in printing, publishing and typography, the family has lent its name to typographic measurements developed by François-Amb ...

, Bottin and others such as

Jean-Baptiste Benoît Eyriès Jean-Baptiste Benoît Eyriès (; 24 June 176713 June 1846) was a French geographer, author and translator, best remembered in the English speaking world for his translation of German ghost stories '' Fantasmagoriana'', published anonymously in 18 ...

. Although the Society rarely funded scientific travel, by issuing instructions to voyagers, encouraging research through competitions, and publishing the results of their work, it served in its early years as "an important institutional support" for the study of

Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. Wit ...

. Two members in the "active core" of the society played central roles in this regard: Jomard and the Irish exile David Ballie Warden. Their terms for a competition for the best new work on "American antiquities", including maps "constructed according to exact methods" and "observations on the mores and customs of the indigenous peoples, and vocabularies of the ancient languages." extended decades-old scientific practices to a new field of anthropological inquiry. The society was to be associated in time with the greatest French and foreign explorers from

René Caillié Auguste René Caillié (; 19 November 1799 – 17 May 1838) was a French explorer and the first European to return alive from the town of Timbuktu. Caillié had been preceded at Timbuktu by a British officer, Major Gordon Laing, who was murdere ...

, the first European to return alive from the town of

Timbuktu Timbuktu ( ; french: Tombouctou; Koyra Chiini: ); tmh, label=Tuareg, script=Tfng, ⵜⵏⴱⴾⵜ, Tin Buqt a city in Mali, situated north of the Niger River. The town is the capital of the Tombouctou Region, one of the eight administrativ ...

, to the underwater explorer

Jacques Cousteau Jacques-Yves Cousteau, (, also , ; 11 June 191025 June 1997) was a French naval officer, oceanographer, filmmaker and author. He co-invented the first successful Aqua-Lung, open-circuit SCUBA ( self-contained underwater breathing apparatus). T ...

, and leading geographers, among them Vidal de la Blache, founder of the French School of

Geopolitics Geopolitics (from Greek γῆ ''gê'' "earth, land" and πολιτική ''politikḗ'' "politics") is the study of the effects of Earth's geography (human and physical) on politics and international relations. While geopolitics usually refers to ...

. The Society was the location of the Arab Congress of 1913, which took place from June 18 to June 23 of that year and marked the confluence of events surrounding the decline of the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University ...

, the beginnings of

Arab nationalism Arab nationalism ( ar, القومية العربية, al-Qawmīya al-ʿArabīya) is a nationalist ideology that asserts the Arabs are a nation and promotes the unity of Arab people, celebrating the glories of Arab civilization, the language ...

, and early Arab reaction to

Zionist Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...

immigration to Palestine.

Publications

The Society's revue has appeared monthly since 1822, as ''Bulletin de la Société de Géographie'' (1822–1899) – offering in octavo format early news of all the discoveries of the nineteenth century – or quarterly, as ''La Géographie'', with a break from 1940 until 1946. Since 1947 the Society's magazine has appeared three times a year, as ''Acta Geographica''. The Society's library, map collection and photograph collection are among the world's deepest and most comprehensive.

List of presidents

Awards

Grande Médaille d'Or des Explorations

The

Grande Médaille d'Or des Explorations The Grande Médaille d’Or des Explorations et Voyages de Découverte (Great Gold Medal of Exploration and Journeys of Discovery) has been awarded since 1829 by the Société de Géographie of France for journeys whose outcomes have enhanced geog ...

et Voyages de Découverte (Great Gold Medal of Exploration and Journeys of Discovery) has been awarded since 1829 for journeys whose outcomes have enhanced geographical knowledge. Notable recipients have been

John Franklin Sir John Franklin (16 April 1786 – 11 June 1847) was a British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer. After serving in wars against Napoleonic France and the United States, he led two expeditions into the Canadian Arctic and through t ...

(1829), John Ross (1834),

David Livingstone David Livingstone (; 19 March 1813 – 1 May 1873) was a Scottish physician, Congregationalist, and pioneer Christian missionary with the London Missionary Society, an explorer in Africa, and one of the most popular British heroes of t ...

(1857),

Ernest Shackleton Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (15 February 1874 – 5 January 1922) was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic. He was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age o ...

(1910) and

Roald Amundsen Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen (, ; ; 16 July 1872 – ) was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He was a key figure of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Born in Borge, Østfold, Norway, Amundsen beg ...

(1913).

Notes

References

Société de Géographie official site
(in French)

External links

''La Géographie : bulletin de la Société de géographie''
dans Gallica, la bibliothèque numérique de la BnF. {{DEFAULTSORT:Societe de geographie History of geography Science and technology in France 1821 establishments in France Organizations based in Paris Geographic societies Learned societies of France ar:جمعية جغرافية