Historedia
Episode 4 of 4

Cerium Discovery

When
1803
Where
Bastnäs, Sweden
Part of
Wollaston, Tennant and Berzelius identify new elements

Berzelius and Hisinger discovered cerium in Bastnäs, Sweden, in 1803, independently confirmed by Klaproth in Germany.

Cerium was discovered in Bastnäs, Sweden, by Jöns Jakob Berzelius and Wilhelm Hisinger in 1803. Martin Heinrich Klaproth independently discovered it in Germany in the same year. The ceria isolated contained other lanthanides, not pure cerium.

Sources

  1. Cerium Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-21
  2. Jöns Jacob Berzelius Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-25

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.