CSS, which stands for Cascading Style Sheets, is a stylesheet language used to describe the presentation and formatting of a document written in HTML or XML. It provides a way to control the visual appearance of web pages, including layout, colors, fonts, and other design aspects.
CSS separates the content of a web page from its presentation, allowing developers to create stylish and visually appealing websites. By using CSS, you can define styles for various elements of a web page, such as headings, paragraphs, links, tables, and more. These styles are then applied to the corresponding elements in the HTML markup.
One of the key features of CSS is its cascading nature. This means that multiple CSS rules can be applied to the same element, and the final style is determined by a specific set of rules called the cascade. CSS also supports inheritance, which allows styles to be inherited by child elements from their parent elements, reducing the need for repetitive styling.
CSS has a wide range of selectors that allow you to target specific elements or groups of elements on a web page. Selectors can be based on element types, class names, IDs, attributes, and more. This flexibility enables precise targeting and styling of specific elements within a document.
Over the years, CSS has evolved, and new features and capabilities have been introduced. CSS3, the latest major version of CSS, brought many advanced features like animations, transitions, gradients, flexible box layout (Flexbox), grid layout (CSS Grid), and more. These features have greatly enhanced the possibilities for creating responsive and interactive web designs.
CSS can be included in an HTML document through the use of <style> tags within the <head> section, or it can be placed in an external CSS file and linked to the HTML document using the <link> tag. External CSS files are commonly used for better organization and reusability of styles across multiple pages.
In summary, CSS is a powerful styling language that allows developers to control the visual presentation of web pages. It offers flexibility, separation of concerns, and the ability to create visually appealing and responsive designs.