1873 KIEPERT, H. - Kiepert's Physikalische Wandkarten IV. ASIEN. . .

Wall map of Asia printed in chromolithography. Published by "Stich und Druck der lith. Anst. von Leopold Kraatz in Berlin".
Physical map showing the Asian continent, with an inset in the lower left showing the different states and European possessions in 1873.
Showing a very large Aral Sea.
Geographer Heinrich Kiepert (1818-1899) is generally reckoned one of the more important scholarly cartographers of the second half of the 19th century. Kiepert developed one of his interests—the historical geography of the classical world—during his student days at the University of Berlin, where he worked with Carl Ritter (1779-1859).
Ritter and Kiepert produced what appears to be one of the first modern atlases of the ancient Greek world, Topographisch-historischer Atlas von Hellas und den hellenischen Colonien in 24 Blättern (1840-1846).

Several additional compilations of maps of the classical world followed: Bibel-Atlas (1847). Historisch-geographischer Atlas der alten Welt (1848) Atlas antiquus (1854). Formae orbis antiqui (1893) and Formae urbis Romae antiquae (1896). Many of these works were reissued in numerous editions, including translations.

Another major interest was the Ottoman Empire, where Kiepert traveled numerous times, gathering enough data to produce several major maps of the Ottoman world between the 1840s and 1890s.
Kiepert also produced some of the first detailed ethnic maps of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Balkan Peninsula. Over many years, he also compiled maps of much of the rest of the world, along with cartographic materials for schools.

Kiepert headed the Geographisches Institut in Weimar from 1845 to 1852 and was a professor at the University of Berlin from 1852. He maintained a long association with the publisher Dietrich Reimer. His son, Richard Kiepert (1846-1915), later updated many editions of Kiepert's maps.

Kiepert's maps are almost invariably clear and easy to read, and they are as accurate as the scholarship of the day permitted. His maps of the historical geography of the classical world have inevitably come to seem a bit old-fashioned in light of later research, but his maps of the Ottoman Empire and surrounding countries remain extraordinarily valuable records of conditions at the time they were compiled.

The map is very rare.