Places of the Periodic Table

This is an interactive searchable map of places associated with the developers of the periodic table and with the chemical elements with links to further information. Examples include places where elements were discovered or synthesized, mineral sources of elements, places where discoverers of chemical periodicity worked, and places for which elements were named. Each entry contains links to further information about the person, place, or event described. The type of site is indicated (for example, lab, residence, mineral source, etc.), as well as whether (to the best of our knowledge) the historical site still exists at the location. For more information on the type of site, please consult this key to the map's fields. The map is intended for educational and informational purposes only, and is not meant as a travel guide. If you wish to visit a site on this map, please consult other resources to confirm access, and use common sense.

The database on which the map is built consists largely of locations from Rediscovery of the Elements, a project of James and Virginia Marshall of the University of North Texas. In the course of more than a decade, the Marshalls visited, photographed, and wrote about places associated with the discoveries of chemical elements. Most of the sites on this map come from a list of sites provided by Jim Marshall. (Sadly, Virginia ("Jenny") passed away in 2014.) Sites listed in the Rediscovery of the Elements project are marked with a check mark, ✓. "Rediscovery" sites were supplemented by other locations selected by the armchair travels of Carmen Giunta using historical documents as well as digital tools like Google Maps and Google Earth. The database we have assembled is available for download here (.xlsx format). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

We are interested in adding still more places to the map, particularly in places outside Europe and North America. Comments and suggestions for additional places are welcome. Please send them to iyptplaces@gmail.com. For suggestions of locations to add to the map, please be as specific as possible: what is the place, and what is its connection to the periodic table or to a particular element?