earth science

Wilhelm Sievers

Wilhelm Sievers is a earth science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Wilhelm Sievers rather than just read about it. In short: Friedrich Wilhelm Sievers (3 December 1860 – 11 June 1921) was a German geologist and geographer. He served as a professor of geography at the University of Giessen.

Key takeaways

Wilhelm Sievers belongs to earth science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Wilhelm Sievers to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Wilhelm Sievers from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Friedrich Wilhelm Sievers (3 December 1860 – 11 June 1921) was a German geologist and geographer. He served as a professor of geography at the University of Giessen. His fieldwork focused on South America, and his Allgemeine Länderkunde was a standard work on world geography for several decades.

Biography Sievers was born into a merchant family in Hamburg. He was educated at Jena, Göttingen, and Leipzig, and became a Privatdozent at Würzburg in 1887 after extensive travels in Venezuela and Colombia. In his education, he broke with his mercantile family's tradition to study the emerging academic field of geography. He was one of Ferdinand von Richthofen's first students. On instructions from the Geological Society of Hamburg, he made three expeditions to South America to carry out geographical and geological studies on the different regions of the country, inspired by the expeditions of Alexander von Humboldt. Sievers mainly focusing on documenting evidence for a South American ice age. In 1902, from the cathedra of Geography of the University of Giessen, he publicly opposed the naval blockade that Germany, England and Italy imposed on Venezuela to force the collection of the foreign debt. In 1909, he established the headwaters of the Marañón, the main source of the Amazon river. Wilhelm Sievers published the Allgemeine Länderkunde (several editions 1891–1935), which for several decades was the leading international geographical publication covering all continents.

Journeys 1884-1886: Colombia and Venezuela 1891-1893: Venezuela 1909: Peru and Ecuador

Selected works

South America Reise in der Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, 1887 Venezuela, 1888 Die Cordillere von Mérida, nebst Bemerkungen über das Karibische Gebirge, 1888 Zweite Reise in Venezuela in den Jahren 1892-93, 1896 Die Quellen des Marañon-Amazonas, 1910 Reise in Peru und Ekuador, Ausgeführt 1909, 1914

Allgemeine Länderkunde Allgemeine Länderkunde: Erste Ausgabe in fünf Bänden, First edition in five volumes, 1891–95 Allgemeine Länderkunde: Zweite Ausgabe in sechs Bänden, Second edition in six volumes, 1901–05 Allgemeine Länderkunde: Kleine Ausgabe in zwei Bänden, Compact edition in two volumes, 1907 Allgemeine Länderkunde: Dritte Ausgabe in sechs Bänden, Third edition 1914 (Due to the outbreak of World War I, this edition remained incomplete) Allgemeine Länderkunde: Begr. von W. Sievers, Third/fourth edition, 1924–35

Other publications Über die Abhängigkeit der jetzigen Konfessionsverteilung in Südwestdeutschland von den früheren Territorialgrenzen (Dissertation), Göttingen 1884. Zur Kenntnis des Taunus, Stuttgart, 1891

References

Literature F. Oliver Brachfield: Sievers en Mérida. De los apuntes de un geógrafo alemán en la Cordillera – 1885, Mérida 1951. P. Claß: Universitätsprofessor Dr. Wilhelm Sievers †. Ein Nachruf, Geographischer Anzeiger, 23. Jahrg. 1922 Heft 1/2 C. Schubert: Hermann Karsten (1851) y Wilhelm Sievers (1888): las primeras descripciones e interpretaciones sobre el órigen de las terrazas aluviales en la Córdillera de Mérida. Bol. Hist. Geocien. Venez., 44, pp 15–19

External links Works by or about Wilhelm Sievers at the Internet Archive

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Wilhelm Sievers

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Wilhelm Sievers claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In earth science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Wilhelm Sievers before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Wilhelm Sievers ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Wilhelm Sievers

In research: Wilhelm Sievers appears in earth science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Wilhelm Sievers in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Wilhelm Sievers is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1860 births, 1921 deaths, 19th-century German botanists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Wilhelm Sievers outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Wilhelm Sievers in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Wilhelm Sievers means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Wilhelm Sievers out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Wilhelm Sievers in simple terms?

Friedrich Wilhelm Sievers (3 December 1860 – 11 June 1921) was a German geologist and geographer. He served as a professor of geography at the University of Giessen.

Why does Wilhelm Sievers matter?

Because it connects several earth science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Wilhelm Sievers?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Wilhelm Sievers.