Discovery of chemical elements

This page shows the history of the chemical elements. As of September 2025, people have discovered or made 118 different elements. Chemical compounds of these elements are often known much earlier, but an element is not called "discovered" until it has been separated from any other elements.

 Color-coded periodic table 
 Periodic table grouped by era when the element was purified 1 2   3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Group →   ↓ Period   1   2         3         4                   5                   6                    7                       colspan="4"                   colspan="4"                   

 Graphical timeline 

 Cumulative diagram 

Category:Chemical elements