Ytterby

Ytterby is a village near Vaxholm in Sweden. There is a quarry in Ytterby where unusual minerals were discovered and these minerals gave rise to the following chemical elements:

• Erbium
• Terbium
• Ytterbium
• Yttrium

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.