HEDIN, SVEN ), Swedish explorer, was born in Stockholm on Feb. 19, 1865. He was educated at Stockholm high school, and Uppsala university, and later studied in Berlin and Halle. In 1885-86 he travelled through Persia and Mesopotamia, and in 1890 was attached to King Oscar's Embassy to the shah of Persia. In the same year he visited Khurasan and Turkestan and reached Kashgar in 1891. His travels in Tibet placed him in the first rank of modern Asiatic explorers. Between 1893 and 1897 he travelled across the Asiatic continent from Orenburg by the Ural over the Pamirs and the plateau of Tibet to Peking. During two other expeditions (1899-1902, 1906-08) he made valuable additions to the scientific knowledge of these tracts and explored specially the sources of the Sutlej and the Brahmaputra. In 19o2 he became a Swedish noble, and in 1909 the Indian Government invested him with the K.C.I.E. In 1923 he travelled round the world, through the United States, Mongolia and Russia. He is one of the 18 members of the Swedish Academy.
Sven Hedin's writings include: Journey through Persia and Mesopo tamia and the Caucassus (1887) ; Journey through Khorasan and Turkestan (1892-93) ; Through Asia (1898) ; Central Asia and Tibet (1903) ; Adventures in Tibet (1904) ; Scientific Results of a Journey in Central Asia 1899-'9o2 (8 vol., 1904-07) ; Transhimalaya (3 vol., 1909-12) ; Overland to India (2 vol., 191o) ; Bagdad, Babylon, Nine veh (1917) ; To Jerusalem (1917) ; Southern Tibet (12 vol., 1917-22) ; Eine Routenaufnahme durch Ostpersien (2 vol., 1918-24) ; My Life as an Explorer (1926) ; The Gobi Desert (1928, Eng. ed. 1931).