Lightest Metals by Density

About This Dataset

This chart ranks the ten lightest metals by density at room temperature, in grams per cubic centimetre. Lithium is the least dense of all metals, so light that it floats on water and even on oil.

✨ AI Insight

Lithium is the lightest metal at just 0.534 g/cm3, roughly half the density of water, which is why it floats. The three least dense metals, lithium, potassium (0.862) and sodium (0.971), are all alkali metals and all lighter than water itself. There is a clear jump after sodium to a cluster near 1.5 to 1.9 g/cm3 containing rubidium, calcium, magnesium, beryllium and caesium. Magnesium (1.738) and beryllium (1.848) are especially notable because, unlike the soft reactive alkali metals above them, they are structurally useful and widely used in lightweight alloys. Aluminium closes the top ten at 2.70 g/cm3, still light enough to make it the workhorse metal of aviation and packaging.

Source: Royal Society of Chemistry

Key Findings

Auto-computed highlights from this dataset

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Aluminium leads with 3 in All Time.

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Average value in All Time: 2 · median: 2.

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Gap in All Time: Aluminium is 5.1× larger than Lithium.