George Montague Wheeler (October 9, 1842 – May 3, 1905) was an American pioneering explorer and cartographer and the leader of the Wheeler Survey, one of the major geographical surveys of the western United States in the late 19th century.

He graduated from West Point in 1866, ranked sixth in his class, and was commissioned as a lieutenant in the US Army Corps of Engineers.

[1] In 1872, the US Congress authorized an ambitious plan to map the portion of the United States west of the 100th meridian at a scale of 8 miles to the inch.

In 1881 he represented the United States at the Third International Geographical Congress and Exhibition in Venice, Italy.

He entered semi-retirement in 1883 but continued to write scientific reports until his full retirement from the army in 1888 at the rank of major.