Malte-Brun, family

Conrad Malte-Brun (1755-1826) was a Danish-born French geographer, cartographer, and writer, and one of the founders of modern geographical scholarship in France. A political exile from Denmark, he settled in Paris, where he collaborated with Edme Mentelle on the influential Géographie mathématique, physique et politique de toutes les parties du monde (1803–1812). His most significant work was the monumental Précis de Géographie Universelle, ou Description de toutes les parties du monde, published in eight volumes between 1810 and 1829. The final volumes were completed posthumously by Jean Jacques Nicolas Huot. His son, Victor Adolphe Malte-Brun (1816-1889), followed in his father's footsteps as a geographer and cartographer. He edited and updated several of his father’s works and contributed his own major publications, including La France Illustrée (1884), a richly detailed geographic and cultural survey of France. The Malte-Bruns played a central role in 19th-century geographical thought, and their work was widely used in education and reference across Europe.