He was educated at the universities of
Heidelberg,
Halle,
Bonn and
Vienna and at first devoted himself to history. A traveling tutorship directed his attention to geography, and he visited many parts of
Europe in the pursuit of this study, but especially the
Mediterranean lands, including North Africa (Atlas lands), e.g. the
Tunisian
Sahara (1886),
Morocco and
Algeria (1888). The “Mediterranean region,” an example in the study of regional geography, is a conception the world owes to Fischer: his thesis for the rank of
Privatdozent in the
University of Bonn (1876) was entitled
Beiträge zur physischen Geographie der Mittelmeerländer (Contributions to the physical geography of the lands of the Mediterranean), and his most important publications are a collection of
Mittelmeerbilder (Mediterranean pictures) and his work on the Mediterranean peninsulas of
Europe in
Alfred Kirchhoff's
Allgemeine Länderkunde. He held professorships of geography at the
University of Kiel (1879-1883) and at
University of Marburg from 1883 until his death. In addition to numerous contributions to scientific periodicals, and the works mentioned above, he also published
Raccolta dei mappemondi e carte nautiche del XIII. al XVI. secolo (10 atlases, containing 79 leaves, 1881). ==Notes==