author and coauthor of several geographies and a founder of the first modern geographic society.

Exiled from Denmark in 1800 for his verses and pamphlets in support of the French Revolution, Malte-Brun established himself as a journalist and geographic writer in Paris. His works include the first six volumes of Précis de la géographie universelle (1810–29; “Précis of World Geography”). He was a founder and the first secretary of the Société de Géographie de Paris (1821). His son Victor Adolphe Malte-Brun, also a geographer, concerned himself with the course of African and Arctic exploration.