Ernst Georg Ravenstein was born on December 30, 1834, in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, the son of a German cartographer and publisher Fridrich August Ravenstein (1809-1881), founder of Ravenstein's Geographische Verlagsanstalt (1830-2001).

He was a German-English cartographer, geographer, statistician, and author. He emigrated to England around 1851 and became a pupil of Dr. August Heinrich Petermann. As a naturalized British subject, he served at the Topographical Department of the British War Office for twenty years (1855-1875). He was a member of the Royal Statistical and Royal Geographical Societies and held the position of Professor of Geography at Bedford College (1882–1883). In 1902, the Royal Geographical Society awarded him the first Victoria gold medal. Ravenstein is best known for his ground-breaking "The Laws of Migration" (1876), a detailed study of human movement, which still forms the basis for modern migration theory. His "Map of Eastern Equatorial Africa" (1881-1883) ranks as one of the most remarkable cartographic works of the 19th century. He was the author of several books, e.g., "The Russians on the Amur" (1861), "Handy Volume Atlas" (1895), and "Vasco da Gama's First Voyage" (1898).

In 1858, he married Sarah Parry (1836-). He died on March 13, 1913, in Hofheim, Hesse, Germany.