Conrad Malte-Brun born
Malthe Conrad Bruun, was a
DanishDenmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
-
FrenchThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
geographerA geographer is a scholar whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society.Although geographers are historically known as people who make maps, map making is actually the field of study of cartography, a subset of geography...
and journalist. His second son,
Victor Adolphe Malte-BrunVictor Adolphe Malte-Brun was a French geographer and cartographer.He was born in Paris, France. The son of Conrad Malte-Brun, another geographer, of Danish origin, and founder of the Société de Géographie....
, was also a geographer.
Biography
Born in
ThistedThisted is a town in Thisted municipality of Region Nordjylland, in Denmark. It has a population of 13,005 and is located in Thy, in northwestern Jutland....
to an administrator of Danish
crown landIn Commonwealth realms, Crown land is an area belonging to the monarch , the equivalent of an entailed estate that passed with the monarchy and could not be alienated from it....
s, Malte-Brun was destined for a career as a
pastorThe word pastor usually refers to an ordained leader of a Christian congregation. When used as an ecclesiastical styling or title, this role may be abbreviated to "Pr." or often "Ps"....
, but chose instead to attend classes at the
University of CopenhagenThe University of Copenhagen is the oldest and largest university and research institution in Denmark. Founded in 1479, it has more than 37,000 students, the majority of whom are female , and more than 7,000 employees. The university has several campuses located in and around Copenhagen, with the...
, and became a supporter of the
French RevolutionThe French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
and an activist in favor of
freedom of the pressFreedom of the press or freedom of the media is the freedom of communication and expression through vehicles including various electronic media and published materials...
. Following the harsh censorship laws instituted by the Danish ruler crown prince
FrederickFrederick VI reigned as King of Denmark , and as king of Norway .-Regent of Denmark:Frederick's parents were King Christian VII and Caroline Matilda of Wales...
in September 1799, he was indicted because of his many pamphlets which contained outright criticism of the government, something which the new censorship laws forbade. The case of
Peter Andreas HeibergPeter Andreas Heiberg was a Danish author and philologist. He was born in Vordingborg, Denmark. The Heiberg ancestry can be traced back to Norway, and has produced a long line of priests, headmasters and other learned men...
, who for similar crimes had been sentenced to exile at
ChristmasChristmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
of 1799 did not make Malte-Brun optimistic about his chances. He had already left the country prior to the court sentence (which was first carried late 1800) and had settled first in
SwedenSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, later in the Free City of
Hamburg-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
.
Malte-Brun arrived in
FranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
in November 1799, and began work on a geography treatise meant as a gift to his adoptive country. This was accomplished with the help of Edme Mentelle, a professor at the
École NormaleThe École normale supérieure is one of the most prestigious French grandes écoles...
; together, they produced
Géographie mathématique, physique et politique de toutes les parties du monde (6 vols., published between 1803 and 1812).
A regular contributor to
Journal des DébatsThe Journal des débats was a French newspaper, published between 1789 and 1944 that changed title several times...
, he was also the founder of
Les Annales des Voyages (in 1807) and
Les Annales des Voyages, de la Géographie et de l'Histoire (in 1819), which encouraged observations and reports as a basis for research. He became well known after contributing
Tableau de la Pologne, a treatise on the geography of
PolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
(in 1807, as the
First EmpireThe First French Empire , also known as the Greater French Empire or Napoleonic Empire, was the empire of Napoleon I of France...
troops
established French tutelage in the regionThe Duchy of Warsaw was a Polish state established by Napoleon I in 1807 from the Polish lands ceded by the Kingdom of Prussia under the terms of the Treaties of Tilsit. The duchy was held in personal union by one of Napoleon's allies, King Frederick Augustus I of Saxony...
). In 1822-1824, he served as the first general secretary of the newly founded
Société de GéographieThe Société de Géographie , is the world's oldest geographical society. It was founded in 1821 . Since 1878, its headquarters has been at 184 Boulevard Saint-Germain, Paris. The entrance is marked by two gigantic caryatids representing Land and Sea...
.
Malte-Brun was the first person to suggest importing camels into
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. See
Australian feral camelThousands of the two main species of Australian feral camels, mostly dromedaries but also some bactrian camels, were imported into Australia during the 19th century for transport and construction as part of the colonisation of the central and western parts of Australia. Motorised transport replaced...
.
He died in
ParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1826, as he was drafting the final version of his major work, the
Précis de Géographie Universelle ou Description de toutes les parties du monde. His name was given to a street in both Paris (
XXe arrondissementThe 20th arrondissement, also known as arrondissement de Ménilmontant, located on the Right Bank, is one of the 20 arrondissements of Paris, France. It contains the cosmopolitan districts of Ménilmontant and Belleville which have welcomed many successive waves of immigration since the middle of the...
) and Thisted.