He was educated at the universities of Leipzig, Berlin, and Greifswald (Ph.D., 1869). He was in the Chinese maritime customs service from 1870 to 1897. In 1902, Professor Hirth was appointed to the professorship of Chinese in Columbia University (New York City).

A collection of Chinese manuscripts and printed books made by him is in the Royal Library at Berlin, and another of porcelains of considerable historical importance in the Gotha Museum. As an investigator he conducted researches in Chinese literature by imitation of the methods of classical philology.

His chief publications include:

• China and the Roman Orient: Researches into their Ancient and Medi?val Relations as Represented in Old Chinese Records (1885)
• Ancient Porcelain: A Study in Chinese Medi?val Industry and Trade (1888)
• Text-Book of Documentary Chinese (two volumes, 1885-88)
• Chinesische Studien, volume i (1890)
• Ueber fremde Einflüsse in der chinesischen Kunst (1896)
• Scraps from a Collector's Note-book, Being Notes on Some Chinese Painters of the Present Dynasty, with Appendices on Some Old Masters and Art Historians (1905)
• The Ancient History of China (1908)
• Chau Ju-kua, (1911) with W. W. Rockhill
• The Story of Chang K'ie'n, China's Pioneer in Western Asia (1917)