<div>: The Content Division element

The HTML Content Division element (<div>) is the generic container for flow content. It has no effect on the content or layout until styled using CSS.

The source for this interactive example is stored in a GitHub repository. If you'd like to contribute to the interactive examples project, please clone https://github.com/mdn/interactive-examples and send us a pull request.

As a "pure" container, the <div> element does not inherently represent anything. Instead, it's used to group content so it can be easily styled using the class or id attributes, marking a section of a document as being written in a different language (using the lang attribute), and so on.

Attributes

This element includes the global attributes.

Usage notes

• The <div> element should be used only when no other semantic element (such as <article> or <nav>) is appropriate.

Examples

A simple example

<div>
  <p>Any kind of content here. Such as
  &lt;p&gt;, &lt;table&gt;. You name it!</p>
</div> 

The result looks like this:

A styled example

This example creates a shadowed box by applying a style to the <div> using CSS. Note the use of the class attribute on the <div> to apply the style named "shadowbox" to the element.

HTML

<div class="shadowbox">
  <p>Here's a very interesting note displayed in a
  lovely shadowed box.</p>
</div>

CSS

.shadowbox {
  width: 15em;
  border: 1px solid #333;
  box-shadow: 8px 8px 5px #444;
  padding: 8px 12px;
  background-image: linear-gradient(180deg, #fff, #ddd 40%, #ccc);
}

Result

Specifications

Browser compatibility

See also

• Semantic sectioning elements: <section>, <article>, <nav>, <header>, <footer>
• <span> element for styling of phrasing content