Abraham Jacob van der Aa

Abraham Jacob van der Aa (Amsterdam, 7 December 1792 - Gorinchem, 21 March 1857) was a Dutch literator. He was born in Amsterdam in 1792. His father was a lawyer. From the ages of 6 till 12 he visited the dayschool in Amstelveen. After this he was send to the boarding school of J.E. van Iterson in Aarlanderveen but only stayed there for a year. After a short stay at the Latinschool in Leiden, where his parents lived at that time, he was send to the Seminarium in Lingen, Germany to study the 'Dead languages'. After his return in 1810 he went to medical school in Leiden but after his father's death he had to leave. He then did his mandatory military service until 1817. At this point he tried to open a bookshop in Leuven but this wasn't a success so he became a teacher in the Dutch language. After 1839 he only worked as a literator and moved to Gorinchem. He wrote several reference works; the most famous were a gazetteer and a biographical dictionary, "Biographisch woordenboek der Nederlanden".

The "Aardrijkskundig Woordenboek der Nederlanden" ("Geographical dictionary of the Netherlands") was a 14-volume gazetteer, published between 1839 and 1851. It was written with the help of a large number of regional historians and other geographers. It covers the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and the former Dutch colonies. It is still used as a reference work, because of the large amount of historical information, even though this has been shown to be unreliable in some cases. Until his death in 1857 he continued working on his 'biographic dictionary'

Persondata
NAME=Aa, Abraham Jacob van der
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=Dutch author
DATE OF BIRTH=December 7, 1792
PLACE OF BIRTH=Amsterdam, Netherlands
DATE OF DEATH=March 21, 1857
PLACE OF DEATH=Gorinchem, Netherlands