118 chemical elements have been identified and named officially by IUPAC. A chemical element, often simply called an element, is a type of atom which has a specific number of protons in its atomic nucleus (i.e., a specific atomic number, or Z).

The definitive visualisation of all 118 elements is the periodic table of the elements, whose history along the principles of the periodic law was one of the founding developments of modern chemistry. It is a tabular arrangement of the elements by their chemical properties that usually uses abbreviated chemical symbols in place of full element names, but the linear list format presented here is also useful. Like the periodic table, the list below organizes the elements by the number of protons in their atoms; it can also be organized by other properties, such as atomic weight, density, and electronegativity. For more detailed information about the origins of element names, see List of chemical element name etymologies.

List

See also

  • List of chemical elements named after people
  • List of chemical elements named after places
  • List of chemical element name etymologies
  • Roles of chemical elements
  • Extended periodic table — Periodic table with eight or more periods

References

  • Atoms made thinkable, an interactive visualisation of the elements allowing physical and chemical properties of the elements to be compared