Adolf Stieler (1775 - 1836)

Stieler was a German cartographer and lawyer who worked most of his life in the Justus Perthes Geographical Institute in Gotha. His Handatlas was the leading German world atlas until the middle of the 20th century. Stieler spent much of his early youth in Gotha, where his father was the mayor. In his adolescence, he showed an interest in geography and maps. Stieler’s cartographic career began with a position as a geography teacher at a girls’ school in Gotha and then with Franz Xaver von Zach, the director of the Gotha Observatory. His works during this period include publishing cartographic representations of a number of von Zach’s observations. From 1804, Stieler worked in the Geographical Institute of Weimar, continuing his goal of starting a geographical publishing business.