CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. It is a powerful language used to control the appearance and layout of web pages written in HTML. While HTML provides the structure and content, CSS adds the visual styling, colors, fonts, and positioning that make websites beautiful and user-friendly.
CSS syntax is straightforward. You start with a selector that targets specific HTML elements, followed by curly braces containing property-value pairs. For example, h1 selects all heading elements, and inside the braces, we can set properties like color to blue, font-size to 24 pixels, and text-align to center.
CSS selectors are patterns used to target specific HTML elements. Element selectors like h1 target all elements of that type. Class selectors use a dot followed by the class name to target elements with that class. ID selectors use a hash symbol to target a unique element with that ID. The universal selector asterisk targets all elements on the page.
The CSS box model is fundamental to understanding layout. Every HTML element is treated as a rectangular box with four distinct areas. The content area holds the actual text or images. Padding provides space around the content. The border creates a visible line around the padding. Finally, margin creates space outside the border, separating elements from each other.
CSS has countless applications in modern web development. It enables responsive design, allowing websites to adapt seamlessly across desktop, tablet, and mobile devices. CSS powers smooth animations and transitions, creates flexible grid and flexbox layouts, manages custom typography, and ensures consistent appearance across different browsers. Mastering CSS is essential for creating beautiful, functional, and user-friendly websites.