Lanthanides are attracting increasing interest due to their technological importance and potential ecotoxicity. Knowledge of lanthanides in Polish soils is very poor, and a question arises whether the soils of former metal ore mining sites are enriched by these elements. Therefore, concentrations of six crucial lanthanides – La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Sm, and Gd – were determined in 92 soil samples collected from 6 historical mining sites in the Sudetes mountain range in southwestern Poland. They correlated strongly with each other, but no significant correlations were found with other metals, either in all samples or within the sites, except for Srebrna Góra, where lanthanides correlated strongly with Ba and Mn. No cases of considerable enrichment in lanthanides were identified in the sites examined, despite very high concentrations of other metals. Median concentrations of La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Sm, and Gd were 25.1, 52.4, 5.8, 21.9, 4.3, and 4.0 mg∙kg⁻¹, and did not differ much from the median values for European soils. Maximum concentrations reported from Srebrna Góra were 2,9-6,8-fold higher than global background determined for Earth crust. However, these concentrations should still be considered as low, posing no environmental risk.
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