Emil von Sydow (July 15, 1812 - October 13, 1873) was a German
geographer born in Freiberg, Saxony . Early in his career he was
a geography instructor at the military academy in Erfurt , and
in 1867 became director of statistics and geography to the
Prussian General Staff. Emil von Sydow is considered to be the
founder of methodical school cartography , and was known for
creating his own wall maps for classroom instruction. In 1838 he
produced a physical map of Asia in his Schulmethodischer Wand
Atlas (Methodic Wall Atlas for Schools), which was soon followed
by maps of other continents. On these maps, von Sydow developed
a color methodology for landscape features using hachures ,
where green was depicted for lowlands and brown used for
highlands. Wilhelm Perthes of the publishing firm "Justus
Perthes Geographische Anstalt Gotha" was impressed with von
Sydow's work and in 1849 produced the latter's Schulatlas in
sechsunddreigig Karten (Schoolatlas in 36 maps), which
eventually ran to 39 editions in 1887. Afte