Gabriel Nikolaus Raspe (dates unknown) was a German map engraver and publisher, active in Nuremberg, whose name is associated with the commercial production of late eighteenth-century printed maps for a broad reading public. He matters chiefly as part of the city’s long tradition of disseminating geographic knowledge through affordable, neatly engraved sheets rather than through large, prestige atlases.

Raspe worked within the Nuremberg print trade as both a producer and distributor, issuing maps that typically responded to contemporary interest in travel, exploration and political geography. His output is most often encountered as separately issued maps and as plates prepared for inclusion in compendia and educational works, reflecting the period’s demand for practical cartography and up-to-date geographical summaries.

Like many German publishers of the time, Raspe’s role could encompass commissioning and selling maps as much as engraving them, and his imprint is therefore best understood as part of a collaborative print economy linking geographers, draughtsmen and copperplate engravers in Nuremberg.

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