Johann Georg Kohl

Johann Georg Kohl (28 April 1808 – 28 October 1878) was a German travel writer, historian, and geographer.

Life

Son of a wine merchant, he attended a Gymnasium in Bremen, and then studied law at the University of Göttingen, Heidelberg University, and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. When his father died in 1830, he had to break off his studies, and he spent six years working as a tutor in Courland. He then traveled to St. Petersburg and other parts of Russia. In 1838, he returned to Germany and settled in Dresden, from where he visited much of Europe and wrote about his experiences.

Future theories

Kohl's main scholarly work, Der Verkehr und die Ansiedlungen der Menschen in ihrer Abhängigkeit von der Gestalt der Erdoberfläche (Transportation and Settlement of People and Their Dependence on Surface Terrain) (1841, 1850) is regarded as the founding text of modern transport and urban geography. Using Moscow as an example, he formulated a mathematical theory for the development of spherical cities, and described how eventually these cities would develop skyscrapers and underground shopping centers. His Die geographische Lage der Hauptstädte Europas (The Geographical Location of the Capitals of Europe) (1874) was also fundamental to theoretical geography.

Travels in the British Isles

Kohl's record of his 1842 journey to Ireland and the English port of Liverpool provides important insights into the condition of both locations before both were beset by the disaster of the Great Famine.

In 1842, Kohl also visited York. He wrote a lengthy description of the Minster and York's Quaker community