Nicholas Michailovitch Prjevalsky (April 12, 1839 - November 1, 1888 (Gregorian calendar)) was a Russian geographer and explorer in central and eastern Asia.
Prjevalsky was born in Smolensk, and studied there and at the military academy in St Petersburg. In 1864 he became a geography teacher at the military school in Warsaw. In 1867 he was sent to Irkutsk in Siberia, where he began to explore the highlands on the banks of the river Ussuri, a tributary of the Amur. In the following years he made four journeys to central Asia :
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1870 - 1873 From Kyakhta he crossed the Gobi desert to Peking, then exploring the upper Yangtze (Chang Jiang), and crossing into Tibet;
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1876 - 1877 travelling through east Turkestan he rediscovered what he believed to be lake Lop Nor, not visited by any European since Marco Polo;
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1879 - 1880 via Hami and through the Qaidam basin to lake Koko Nor. Then over the Tian Shan mountains into Tibet to within 260 km of Lhasa before being turned back by Tibetan officials;
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1883 - 1885 from Kyakhta across the Gobi to Alashan and the eastern Tian Shan mountains, turning back at the Yangtze. Then back to Koko Nor, and westwards to Khotan and Lake Issyk Kul.
The results of these expanded journeys opened a new era for geography as well as the fauna and flora of this up to then relatively unknown area. Among other things he discovered the wild population of Bactrian Camels as well as the Przewalski's Horse named after him.
Prjevalsky died of typhus during his fifth journey at Karakol. The Tsar immediately changed the name of the town to Prjevalsk.
He wrote Mongolia, and the Tangut Country (1875) and From Kulja, Across the Tian Shan to Lob-Nor (1879).
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