Yi-Fu Tuan was born on December 5th, 1930 in Tianjin, China, and was educated in China,
Australia, the Philippines, and the United Kingdom. Tuan attended University College, London
before graduating from the University of Oxford with a BA in 1951 and an MA in 1955. In 1957
he received his Ph.D from the University of California, Berkeley. From 1959 to 1965, Tuan
taught at the University of New Mexico before moving to Canada to teach at the University of
Toronto from 1966 to 1968. In 1968, Tuan became a full professor at the University of
Minnesota. While teaching at the University of Minnesota, Tuan became known for his work in
humanistic geography. In 1985, Tuan relocated to teach at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison, where he served as the J.K. Wright and Vilas Professor of Geography until
1998, before retiring as an emeritus professor. Over the course of Tuan's career, he became
a leading figure in the field of humanistic geography, publishing 20 books (translated into
many languages), 40 book chapters and sections, over 80 journal articles, over 50 book
reviews, and presenting at national and international conferences in a variety of
disciplines.
