Schlagintweit, the name of five brothers who all distinguished themselves as travellers or as writers on sciences allied to geography. Three of them—HERMANN VON SCHLAGINTWEIT, born at Munich on 13th May 1826; ADOLF, born at Munich 9th January 1829; and ROBERT, born on 27th October 1833—worked for the most part in company, and in the same departments of inquiry. Hermann and Adolf first made themselves known as investigators of the physical geography of the Alps, through two books—Untersuchungen über die physikalische Geographie der Alpen (1850) and a continuation, Neue Untersuchungen (1854). Shortly after the publication of the last named Wilhelm von Humboldt got them, along with Robert, recommended to the British East India Company, who sent them out to India to make observations on terrestrial magnetism, to measure mountain altitudes, and carry on meteorological and geognostic investigations. They spent nearly two years and a half in executing their commission, and in the course of it traversed great part of the Deccan, and crossed the main chains of the Himalayas, and penetrated into Tibet. Hermann also made his way alone into Sikkim and Assam, and then in company with Robert explored parts of Ladakh, and crossed, the first of all Europeans, the Kuen-Lun Mountains, for which feat Hermann was in later years nicknamed 'Sakünliński.' Adolf in the meantime examined the geological structure of the Nilgiris in the south, explored parts of Balti in western Tibet, and in the summer of 1857 crossed the Karakorum and Kuen-Lun Mountains and reached Yarkand; there, however, he was seized by Yakub Beg, emir of East Turkestan, and put to death on 26th August. Hermann on his return to Europe settled down to private life, and gave his energies chiefly to the publication of scientific papers. He died at Munich on 19th January 1882. Robert was in 1863 appointed professor of Geography at Giessen, where he died on 6th June 1885. The Schlagintweits' travels in India are recorded in their Results of a Scientific Mission to India and High Asia (4 vols. Leip. 1860-66). During two long journeys through the United States in 1869 and 1880, Robert gathered materials for works on the Pacific railways (1870, 1884, 1886), California (1871), the Mormons (1877), &c.
A fourth brother, EDUARD, born on 23d March 1831, took part in the Spanish invasion of Morocco of 1859-60 and wrote an account of it. He was killed in the battle of Kissingen, fighting in the Bavarian army, on 10th July 1866. EMIL, the fifth brother, born 7th July 1835, chose law for his calling, and the study of Tibetan and Indian languages for his amusement during leisure hours. He has written Buddhism in Tibet (Lond. 1860), Die Könige von Tibet (Munich, 1865), Die Gottesurteile der Inder (1866), and other books.