Johann Heinrich Westphal

Template:Short description Template:Distinguish Johann Heinrich Westphal (January 31, 1794 – 1831) was a German astronomer, mathematician, and geographer.

Westphal was born in Schwerin in 1794.<ref name="Goren-2015">Template:Cite journal</ref> After fighting as part of the Lützow Free Corps during the Napoleonic Wars, he studied at the University of Göttingen.<ref name="Goren-2015" /> In 1817, he received his doctorate with a thesis on the parallelogram of force.<ref name="Goren-2015" /> From 1820 to 1822, he lectured on astronomy in Stettin and published several papers.<ref name="Goren-2015" /> He translated Giuseppe Piazzi's Lezioni elementari di astronomia ad use del real osservatorio di Palermo into German as Lehrbuch der Astronomie in 1822.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In 1822, Westphal embarked on a research expedition to Egypt and Palestine with Template:Ill and Gustav Parthey.<ref name="Goren-2015" /> He made a number of detailed sketches that were converted into an accurate map of Jerusalem, published as Jerusalem und seine nächsten Umgebungen in 1825 by Heinrich Berghaus in his journal Hertha.<ref name="Goren-2015" /> The map was largely forgotten by later cartographers in the 19th and 20th centuries.<ref name="Goren-2015" />

His professional career was spent mostly in Italy, where he published several travel guides describing different regions in the peninsula under the name Justus Tommasini.<ref name="Goren-2015" /> He died in Sicily and was buried in the churchyard of Termini Imerese.<ref name="Goren-2015" />