Why Doesn't My Parent Container Show Its Background Color When Using Floating Elements in CSS?

Background Color and Floating Elements in CSS

When working with CSS, you may encounter a situation where floating elements prevent the parent container from exhibiting its background color. This issue arises because floating elements are removed from the document's flow, causing the parent to lose its defined dimensions.

As an example, consider the following HTML structure:

<div class="content">
    <div class="left">
        <p>some content</p>
    </div>
    <div class="right">
        <p>some content</p>
    </div>
</div>

With the following styling:

.content {
    width: 960px;
    height: auto;
    margin: 0 auto;
    background: red;
    clear: both;
 }

.left {
     float: left;
     height: 300px;
     background: green;
 }

.right {
     float: right;
     background: yellow;
 }

In this scenario, adding content to the "right" floating element will not cause the parent div to expand vertically, revealing the red background.

To resolve this issue, you can use the overflow property on the parent element. Setting overflow to either hidden or auto forces the parent to contain its children, allowing the background color to be displayed correctly.

Here's an example using overflow: hidden:

.content {
    overflow:hidden;
}

By forcing the parent element to contain its children, the red background is now visible, even with the floating elements present.

The above is the detailed content of Why Doesn't My Parent Container Show Its Background Color When Using Floating Elements in CSS?. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!