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Rarity, scarcity and utility; all combined.

• Gold is relatively rare, you can't just dig a ground and extract gold.
• You can use Gold for purposes, such as chips, electronic devices etc. These are usually the more advanced and expensive tech, so gold gets a higher point there than other metals.

>Why is it used and so valued over similar metals with such properties?

There are no metals with similar properties.

Gold is rare enough to be sought after yet common enough to be gathered in usable quantities, absolutely trivial to mine/gather and refine, easy to identify, easy to work with, easy to alloy, non-toxic and does not tarnish or corrode away.

It's also shiny.

Gold is very non-reactive so it will basically never naturally rust/tarnish. It is rather soft so it can be easily worked into things like jewelry without a forge. It's fairly rare, and has a unique color.

And in modern times it is very electrically conductive.

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Gold has it’s uses like others said before, therefore there is a value in that.

Gold has a symbolic value due to it’s rarity like diamonds etc.

Also gold has a monetary value just like money or stocks etc. because it was used for exchange of wares. This one is simply through the belief of humans that these things have inherent value.

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Lots of metals are rare and have utilization. Historical valuation is the likely culprit. Platinum is far rarer than gold. So is palladium. They both have numerous uses for implementation, yet gold is far more expensive than both.

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