He initiated the Serbian Ethnographic Collection (Srpski etnološki zbornik), within which 102 books were published, representing a unique scientific and interdisciplinary project on a global scale.

Cvijić's father, Todor, was a merchant; his grandfather, Živko, was head of Loznica and a supporter of the House of Obrenović in Mačva.

Cvijić's mother, Marija (née Avramović), was from a family in the village of Korenita in the Jadar region (near Tronoša and Tršić, the birthplace of Vuk Stefanović Karadžić).

[4][6] Cvijić taught at the Second Male Grammar School in Belgrade and in the meantime published his first geographical work on the Karst landscape in 1889 after a trip to the eastern countryside of Serbia piqued his interest.

[4] He enrolled at Vienna University where he studied physical geography and geology under the tutelages of scholars like Albrecht Penck, Professor Suess (president of the Austrian Academy) and Julius von Hann.

[10] Cvijić's work can be compartmentalized into five sections: the karst, glaciations in the Balkan mountains, tectonic elements in the peninsula, lakes and human geography.

[4] Much of his research was complicated by the tense political situations with the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman authorities, dangerous and remote areas and lack of suitable roads and maps.

Later, he focused on the mountains of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro, studying the karst and tectonic structure, looking for evidence of glaciations, leading him to publish Papers on the glacial epoch in the Balkan peninsula.

Cvijić's monograph on lime karst was well received in European scientific circles, and an introductory academic lecture established him as the first South Slavic tectonicist.

The Serbian lime fields had been studied only peripherally by Otto von Pirch (1830), Ami Boué (1840), Felix Philipp Kanitz, Milan Milićević, Jovan Žujović and Vladimir Karić before him.

[1] In 1896 Cvijić published "Instructions for studying villages in Serbia and other Serbian lands", which was later revised to apply to other Balkan regions.

[4] In 1906 he published his signature monograph Basics of Geography and Geology of Macedonia and Old Serbia, which would become a staple reference for future researchers.

When classifying anthropological types Cvijić considered social structure (work, endogamy, exogamy and migration) the primary factor, stressing the effects of the physical environment on a population's psyche.

His efforts and research helped him gather crucial data, which he used during negotiations on the state borders of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia after World War I.

[16] Using ethnographic charts, Cvijić demonstrated the geographical distribution of the various Balkan peoples which helped determine the borders of a new country: the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

[citation needed] After Cvijić's return from Vienna in March 1893 he became a professor in the Faculty of Philosophy of the Velika Skola in Belgrade where he taught geography.

He was influential in establishing five new faculties: medicine, agriculture and theology in Belgrade, philosophy in Skopje and the Subotica Law School.

[4] Cvijić thought that the grammar-school education of that era should last seven years, instead of eight, and felt that young men should be included early in adult life and independent work.

Grammar school forms the intelligence and character perhaps even deeper and stronger than university; it influences the spirit and moral value of future intellectuals.

The museum features manuscripts, letters, notes, books, paintings, geographical charts, atlases and personal items, and occasional lectures are presented.

His work has been continued by his students, six of whom later became members of the Serbian Academy (including Pavle Vujević, Borivoje Z. Milojević and Milisav Lutovac).