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Child combinator

The child combinator (>) is placed between two CSS selectors. It matches only those elements matched by the second selector that are the direct children of elements matched by the first.

/* List items that are children of the "my-things" list */
ul.my-things > li {
  margin: 2em;
}

Elements matched by the second selector must be the immediate children of the elements matched by the first selector. This is stricter than the descendant combinator, which matches all elements matched by the second selector for which there exists an ancestor element matched by the first selector, regardless of the number of "hops" up the DOM.

Syntax

selector1 > selector2 { style properties }

Examples

CSS

span {
  background-color: aqua;
}

div > span {
  background-color: yellow;
}

HTML

<div>
  <span>
    Span #1, in the div.
    <span>Span #2, in the span that's in the div.</span>
  </span>
</div>
<span>Span #3, not in the div at all.</span>

Result

Specifications

Browser compatibility

Desktop Mobile
Chrome Edge Firefox Internet Explorer Opera Safari WebView Android Chrome Android Firefox for Android Opera Android Safari on IOS Samsung Internet
Child_combinator 1 12 1
7Before Internet Explorer 10, the combinator only works in standards mode.
4 1 ≤37 18 4 10.1 1 1.0

See also

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https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Child_combinator