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Ytterby is a village near Vaxholm in Sweden. There is a quarry in Ytterby where unusual minerals (Gadolinite) were discovered and study of these minerals led to identification of 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 gadolinite, which is named after Professor Johan Gadolin), holmium (from the Latin name for Stockholm), thulium (Thule is an old Latin word for the Nordic countries) and, of course, ytterbium, erbium, terbium and yttrium, all of which were named after Ytterby itself.