CSS Cascading Order

CSS Cascading Order Determines which style should be applied when multiple styles are assigned to an HTML element, fixing this is called CSS Cascading Order.

All the styles on the page will be "cascaded" in a new "virtual style sheet" by the following cascading rules:


To know the CSS cascading order and rule it is necessary to know all types of CSS.

Types of CSS

Here are some types of CSS:

Inline style

Inline style means adding CSS using the style attribute as the HTML attribute inside the opening tag of the HTML element.

Internal style

Internal style ie writing CSS code using the style tag in the head section of the HTML page.

External style sheet

External style sheet ie creating a separate CSS file and linking it to the head section of the HTML file.

Browser default styles

Browser default styles Browser default CSS values for all HTML elements.


What is the CSS Cascading Order Rule?

According to the CSS cascading priority scheme the CSS cascading order rule is that whichever style is closest to the element will have priority from highest to lowest

Consider it with the following example:


css cascading order rule image

In this case, inline CSS is closer to the tag, so inline CSS is preferred.

Therefore, an inline style is most preferred, as it overrides the external and internal styles and the default style of the browser.


Internal, External and Inline CSS Examples

CSS Example code

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="stylesheet.css">
<style>
h1 {
  color: green;
  text-align: right;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>

<h1 style="color:red;text-align:center;">This is a heading</h1>
<p style="color:green;">This is a paragraph.</p>

</body>
</html>

Which style has highest priority?

Learn about the CSS cascading priority scheme related to Cascading Order of CSS and the Rules.