This article is about common table salt. Salt bagel table salt used in chemistry, see Sodium chloride. Salt is essential for life in general, and saltiness is one of the basic human tastes.

China dates to approximately the same period. Sodium is an essential nutrient for human health via its role as an electrolyte and osmotic solute. All through history, the availability of salt has been pivotal to civilization. What is now thought to have been the first city in Europe is Solnitsata, in Bulgaria, which was a salt mine, providing the area now known as the Balkans with salt since 5400 BC. While people have used canning and artificial refrigeration to preserve food for the last hundred years or so, salt has been the best-known food preservative, especially for meat, for many thousands of years. There is more salt in animal tissues, such as meat, blood, and milk, than in plant tissues. Nomads who subsist on their flocks and herds do not eat salt with their food, but agriculturalists, feeding mainly on cereals and vegetable matter, need to supplement their diet with salt.

Ponds near Maras, Peru, fed from a mineral spring and used for salt production since pre-Inca times. Salt may have been used for barter in connection with the obsidian trade in Anatolia in the Neolithic Era. In Africa, salt was used as currency south of the Sahara, and slabs of rock salt were used as coins in Abyssinia. Salzach in central Austria in an area with extensive salt deposits.

Hallstatt was the site of the world’s first salt mine. The town gave its name to the Hallstatt culture that began mining for salt in the area in about 800 BC. The word salary comes from the Latin word for salt. Roman Legions were sometimes paid in salt is baseless. Wars have been fought over salt.

Venice fought and won a war with Genoa over the product, and it played an important part in the American Revolution. Sea salt and mined salt may contain trace elements. Comparison of table salt with kitchen salt. Shows a typical salt shaker and salt bowl with salt spread before each on a black background. Salt is essential to the health of humans and other animals, and it is one of the five basic taste sensations. Salt is used in many cuisines, and it is often found in salt shakers on diners’ eating tables for their personal use on food. Some table salt sold for consumption contains additives that address a variety of health concerns, especially in the developing world.