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Overview

Manganese is a transition metal. The transition metals are the large block of elements in the middle of the periodic table. The periodic table is a chart that shows how chemical elements are related to each other. The transition metals make up Rows 4 through 7 in Groups 3 through 12 of the periodic table. Many of the best known and most widely used metals are in this group of elements.

It took chemists some time to discover the difference between manganese and iron. The two metals have very similar properties and often occur together in the Earth's crust. The first person to clearly identify the differences between the two elements was Swedish mineralogist Johann Gottlieb Gahn (1745-1818) in 1774.