GEOGRAPHERS from Spain

Top 5

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Spanish Geographers of all time. This list of famous Spanish Geographers is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

1. Muhammad al-Idrisi (1100 - 1165)

With an HPI of 73.68, Muhammad al-Idrisi is the most famous Spanish Geographer.  His biography has been translated into 74 different languages on wikipedia.

Abu Abdullah Muhammad al-Idrisi al-Qurtubi al-Hasani as-Sabti, or simply al-Idrisi (Arabic: أبو عبد الله محمد الإدريسي القرطبي الحسني السبتي; Latin: Dreses; 1100–1165), was a Muslim geographer and cartographer who served in the court of King Roger II at Palermo, Sicily. Muhammed al-Idrisi was born in Ceuta, then belonging to the Almoravid dynasty. He created the Tabula Rogeriana, one of the most advanced medieval world maps.

2. Pomponius Mela (15 - 100)

With an HPI of 63.76, Pomponius Mela is the 2nd most famous Spanish Geographer.  His biography has been translated into 37 different languages.

Pomponius Mela, who wrote around AD 43, was the earliest known Roman geographer. He was born in Tingentera (now Algeciras) and died c. AD 45. His short work (De situ orbis libri III.) remained in use nearly to the year 1500. It occupies less than one hundred pages of ordinary print, and is described by the Encyclopædia Britannica (1911) as "dry in style and deficient in method, but of pure Latinity, and occasionally relieved by pleasing word-pictures." Except for the geographical parts of Pliny's Historia naturalis (where Mela is cited as an important authority), the De situ orbis is the only formal treatise on the subject in Classical Latin.

3. Ibn Jubayr (1145 - 1217)

With an HPI of 61.55, Ibn Jubayr is the 3rd most famous Spanish Geographer.  His biography has been translated into 25 different languages.

Ibn Jubayr (1 September 1145 – 29 November 1217; Arabic: ابن جبير), also written Ibn Jubair, Ibn Jobair, and Ibn Djubayr, was an Arab geographer, traveller and poet from al-Andalus. His travel chronicle describes the pilgrimage he made to Mecca from 1183 to 1185, in the years preceding the Third Crusade. His chronicle describes Saladin's domains in Egypt and the Levant which he passed through on his way to Mecca. Further, on his return journey, he passed through Christian Sicily, which had been recaptured from the Muslims only a century before, and he made several observations on the hybrid polyglot culture that flourished there.

4. Abraham Cresques (1325 - 1387)

With an HPI of 60.72, Abraham Cresques is the 4th most famous Spanish Geographer.  His biography has been translated into 28 different languages.

Abraham Cresques (Catalan pronunciation: [əβɾəˈam ˈkɾeskəs], 1325–1387), whose real name was Cresques (son of) Abraham, was a 14th-century Jewish cartographer from Palma, Majorca, then part of the Crown of Aragon. In collaboration with his son, Jehuda Cresques, Cresques is credited with the authorship of the celebrated Catalan Atlas of 1375.

5. Al-Bakri (1014 - 1094)

With an HPI of 59.94, Al-Bakri is the 5th most famous Spanish Geographer.  His biography has been translated into 31 different languages.

Abū ʿUbayd ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Muḥammad ibn Ayyūb ibn ʿAmr al-Bakrī (Arabic: أبو عبيد عبد الله بن عبد العزيز بن محمد بن أيوب بن عمرو البكري), or simply al-Bakrī (c. 1040–1094) was an Arab Andalusian historian and a geographer of the Muslim West.