Günter Schilder (b. 1942) studied geography and history at Vienna University from 1960 to 1967. He undertook two years of research in the Netherlands for his dissertation and in 1970 he obtained a PhD at Vienna University. Since 1971 he has worked in the Netherlands at Utrecht University on the history of cartography. In 1981 he was appointed professor of the history of cartography, a position he continued until his retirement in 2005. Schilder has written numerous publications on the history of Dutch cartography and discoveries. As a result the knowledge of and appreciation for Dutch cartography in its Golden Age has been considerably augmented.