Ytterby
Ytterby is a village near
Vaxholm in
Sweden. There is a quarry in Ytterby where unusual minerals were discovered and these mineral gave rise to the following chemical elements:
Sweden, and more specifically the village of Ytterby in Stockholm's archipelago, has played an important role in the history of
rare earth elements since many of them were first discovered there, e.g.
gadolinium (named after Professor Johan Gadolin),
holmium (from the Latin name for
Stockholm),
thulium (
Thule is an old word for the
Nordic countries) and, of course,
ytterbium,
erbium,
terbium and
yttrium, all of which were named after Ytterby itself.