Justus Perthes

The publishing house of Justus Perthes was founded in Gotha in 1785 by Justus Perthes (1749–1816), and over the following century became the most scientifically authoritative geographical publisher in the world. Its key productions were Adolf Stieler’s Hand-Atlas (first issued 1817–1823), the standard German general atlas for over a century; Heinrich Berghaus’s Physikalischer Atlas (1838–1848), the founding document of thematic cartography; and above all Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen, founded in 1855 by August Heinrich Petermann, the geographical journal whose maps set the benchmark for precision and innovation that other publishers measured themselves against.