Romanian Geography Society

Happy 150th birthday to the Romanian Geography Society. 

The website gives information about the founding of the Society in 1875. Following the official linking to the royal family at an opening congress, Mr. Vice-President A.A. Cantacuzino, on behalf of the society’s members, responded:

Most Exalted Lord,

“When a society feels the need for a useful institution, then from all sides the desire to satisfy it manifests; the institution is born imperceptibly and develops through the cooperation of men interested in the intellectual and material prosperity of the country. But when, in addition to this cooperation, the Head of State himself takes that institution under His powerful protection and agrees to guide its destinies, then the future of this institution is assured. Under these favourable conditions is our Geographical Society, whose establishment we inaugurate today.

The importance of such societies from economic and scientific perspectives has been recognized in all countries; thus, as early as 1821, the first geographical society was founded in Paris by Maltebrun and Barbie du Bocage.In 1828, the geographical society was founded in Berlin under the name “Gesellschaft für Erdkunde.”

• In 1830, the one in London under the name “Royal Geographical Society.”
• In 1836, the society in Frankfurt am Main.
• In 1845, the society for geography and related sciences in Darmstadt.
• In 1845, the Imperial Society in St. Petersburg.
• In 1845, the Imperial Royal Society in Vienna.
• In 1861, the Society in Leipzig.
• In 1865, the Society in Dresden, and in 1866 in Italy, whose societies have gained significant momentum in recent years.

Similarly, extra-European countries, especially America, have established geographical societies, particularly since 1840, such as the Society in Boston, New York, etc., following the impulse given by the continent.

The most important society of this kind, however, is undoubtedly the one in London, which also formed two branches, one in Bombay in 1832, and the second in Melbourne in 1860.

For our country, the usefulness of a geographical society is all the greater as it will contribute through its work to the exact knowledge of our ancestral land by ourselves and by other peoples.

Isolated attempts have been made in the past in this immense field, but precisely because they were individual, their results here were modest and could not penetrate all directions of science.