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"A Masterpiece of Reconnaissance Surveying" -- The First Modern Map of The Mount Everest Region

Fine example of the first map to show the entire Mount Everest–Khumbu region at such large scale.

The present map is of monumental importance.  As noted in Volume 6 of the History of Cartography at page 595.

The first ascent of Mount Everest by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay on 29 May 1953 stimulated interest in large-scale topographic mapping of the region. The 1:25,000-scale map, Mahalangur Himal: Chomolongma–Mount Everest, edited by the DAV, ÖAV, and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, was published in 1957.  It was the first map to show the entire Mount Everest–Khumbu region at such large scale. The fieldwork (triangulation and terrestrial photogrammetry) during the International Himalaya Expedition 1955 and subsequent analysis was conducted by Schneider. Relief representation consisted of twenty-meter contours with rock drawing by Ebster.

During the 1955 International Himalaya Expedition, let my Norman Dyhernfurth, Erwin Schneider conducted terrestrial photogrammetric field work, and subsequently plotted his remarkable 1957 Chomolongma-Mount Everest map. This map produced at a scale of 1:25,000 uses for control the latest position and height of Everest, as determined by the Survey of India (1952-55) and fixed at 29,028 feet.  The map is a masterpiece of reconnaissance surveying. The detail made possible by Schneider’s careful ground survey and the artistry of Fritz Ebster, who turned field sketches into the relief like reproduction of bedrock, moraines and glaciers, is commendable.

Schneider's career as a mapmaker in the region would last for another 20 years.  Until 1977, the preparation of those maps was the responsibility Schneider, who organized and executed the fieldwork (triangulation, terrestrial photogrammetry, and aerial imagery), as well as the analysis. 

Erwin Hermann Manfred Schneider Biography

Erwin  Schneider was an Austrian cartographer and mountaineer, who is best known for his exploration of the Himalayas.

Schneider studied in Idira (Idrija), Slovenia and later in Salzburg.  He ultimately studied mining at the Technical University of Charlottenburg.

Schneider would make his real mark as a mountain climber.  Schneider was a member of the Association for Comparative High Mountain Research and the official cartographer of the German Alpine Association.  

Schneider was the lead cartographer on the Dyrhenfurth Himalaya Expedition of 1955 which produced the first and most important modern survey of the Nepalese approaches to Mount Everest, published in 1957. 

Schneider was the author of a series of important mountaineering maps of Nepal, which are now are generally known as the 'Schneider Maps'.