List of Romanian explorers
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Prince Dimitrie Ghika-Comanesti - explored Africa 1894-1895: the interior of Somaliland and Abyssinia. Made botanical discoveries and brought back zoological specimens for the Natural History Museum in Bucharest.
Prince Nicolas Ghika-Comanesti - son of Dimitrie Ghika-Comanesti, with whom he explored Africa in 1894-1895: the interior of British Somaliland. Afterwards, on his own he made voyages to Northern Africa and Sahara in 1899 and to Canada and Alaska (Kodiak I.) in 1910.
Julius Popper (1857-1893) - a brilliant engineer and an oportunistic adventurer, extremely lucky gold seeker, he studied the extremity of South America (Patagonia & Tierra Del Fuego).
Hilarie Mitrea (1842-1904) - a doctor in the colonial Dutch Army, in 1869 travelled deeply into the Indonesian Archipelago (Kalimantan, Sumtra, Sulawesi, Batak and eastern Papua New Guinea) collecting specimens of plants and animals for the Romanian National Natural History Museum.
Mihai Tican-Rumano - son of a small town lumberjack, an adventurer, hunter, globetrotter and writer, he traveled to central East Africa in 1925 where he hunted, studied cannibalism first hand.
Florica Sas (1826-1913), wife of Sir Samuel White Baker, with an amazing history, was active with her expedition leader husband in Africa as full participant.
Emil Racovita or Racovitza (1868-1947) - traveled to Patagonia, Tierra Del Fuego but most notably he is remembered for his research in Antarctica on board the ship "Belgica". He was one of the world's foremost cave explorers, and the international founder for the science of biospeology (study of life in caves).
Sever Pleniceanu (1867-1924) - doctor, officer and cartographer, he went deep into the interior of the Congo for three years, contracted by the Belgian colonial army. Studied equatorial forest pigmy tribes.
Basil Asan (1860-1918) in 1896-1897 he travelled and studied Lapland, the Arctic, Spitsbergen Islands, discovering new islands. Afterwards, he voyaged fully around the world and on his return, with the King of Romania's permission, boarded the "Elisabeta" warship and took possession of certain unclaimed islands in the Pacific for Romania, but the project fell short for financial reasons.
Grigore Stefanescu (1836-1911) geologist, mineralogist and paleontologist, mainly interested in volcanoes, he researched at the end of 19th century such places as Yellowstone, Mexico, Caucasus, Siberia, Lake Baikal, Scandinavia and wrote eleven books.
Constantin Dumbrava (1898-1935) - explorer of Greenland, led a ten month expedition in 1928 in Angmassalik region, then, in 1930 to 1931 he crossed the entire island and studied the Eskimos.
Contantin Chiru (1848-1933)
List of explorers born in Transylvania, Romania, but of other heritage than Romanian
Count Samuel Teleki - (1845-1916) nobleman of Hungarian origin, he lead the first European expedition in northern Kenya, discovering Lake Turkana (then Lake Rudolf), then Tanzania and Ethiopia. He was the first man to attempt climbing Mount Kilimanjaro (up to 5300 ft) and Mount Kenya (up to 4300 ft).
Baron Franz Nopcsa (1877-1933) nobleman of Hungarian origin, he made amazing discoveries in the field of paleontology, regarding dinosaurs in Europe.
Francisc Bidner - (1824-1875), German origins,; a prosperous pharmacist by profession, he traveled to Sudan and Congo, studying the Nile and Congo, being the first European to have visited some places. He filled the Brukenthal Museum in Sibiu Romania with natural specimens but most notably with ethnographic pieces. He was the first European to see the Akka pigmies, while at a royal court. He also made studies of the gorillas. Bidner is little known as minimal literature has been preserved on him.
