Born in
Utrecht, Ferjan Ormeling lived in
The Hague until he was six years old. His parents Ferdinand Jan Ormeling Sr. and K.J. (Ina) ten Hoopen were both
geographers. In 1948, the family moved to
Java, where his father set up the Geographical Institute of Batavia. In 1961, Ferjan Jr. went to study geography at the
University of Groningen. He attended lectures by
Willem Frederik Hermans, among others. During his entire study period, Ferjan worked at J.B. Wolters at the
Bosatlas, of which his father had meanwhile become editor-in-chief. In 1968, he married, in 1971 and 1973 a son and a daughter were born. After graduating in 1969, he went to work at the
Utrecht University under Professor
Cornelis Koeman, with whom he had attended secondary courses. On 3 June 1983, he received his doctorate with a thesis on the inclusion of geographical names in minority languages on topographical maps. Promoters were Cornelis Koeman and Dick Blok. From 1985 to 2009, Prof. Dr. Ormeling was professor of cartography at Utrecht University. He gave lectures on atlas cartography, environmental mapping, cartographic theory, historical cartography, map editing and map production. As the driving force of one of the few cartography courses in the Netherlands, he was the figurehead of cartography in the Netherlands for more than two decades. Among other things, he was concerned with the question of how thematic maps should be designed in order to achieve the best possible transfer of information. He strongly criticized the maps in government reports (and the frequent lack of maps in them). Those bad maps would stand in the way of good decision-making by, for example, the
House of Representatives. In his inaugural address entitled
Beeldvorming (Conceptualization) in April 1986, Ormeling stated:
The description of the map material is a lithany, a succession of cartographic errors, misunderstanding and ignorance. On 13 June 2025, Ormeling died in
Utrecht at the age of 82. == Functions ==