Skip to main content

<span>: The Content Span element

The <span> HTML element is a generic inline container for phrasing content, which does not inherently represent anything. It can be used to group elements for styling purposes (using the class or id attributes), or because they share attribute values, such as lang. It should be used only when no other semantic element is appropriate. <span> is very much like a {{HTMLElement("div")}} element, but {{HTMLElement("div")}} is a block-level element whereas a <span> is an inline-level element.

{{EmbedInteractiveExample("pages/tabbed/span.html", "tabbed-shorter")}}

Attributes​

This element only includes the global attributes.

Example​

Example 1​

HTML​

<p><span>Some text</span></p>

Result​

{{EmbedLiveSample('Example_1')}}

Example 2​

HTML​

<li>
  <span>
    <a href="portfolio.html" target="_blank">See my portfolio</a>
  </span>
</li>

CSS​

li span {
  background: gold;
}

Result​

{{EmbedLiveSample('Example_2')}}

Technical summary​

Content categories Flow content, phrasing content.
Permitted content Phrasing content.
Tag omission None, both the starting and ending tag are mandatory.
Permitted parents Any element that accepts phrasing content, or any element that accepts flow content.
Implicit ARIA role No corresponding role
Permitted ARIA roles Any
DOM interface {{domxref("HTMLSpanElement")}}

Specifications​

Browser compatibility​

See also​

  • HTML {{HTMLElement("div")}} element