Ali Şeref Paşa

Ali Şeref Paşa (d. 1907), also known as Hafız Ali Esref, was an Ottoman soldier and cartographer. Details about his early life are scarce, but we know he was sent to Paris to study mapmaking by the Ottoman government in 1862. In 1868, while residing in Paris, he published his first atlas in Ottoman Turkish. Upon returning to Istanbul around 1870, Pasha became chief cartographer at the Matbaa-i Amire Printing Press in Istanbul. He produced several critical cartographic works before passing away in 1907.