Quick reference

Basic usage

Setting the background position

Use the bg-{side} utilities to control the position of an element’s background image.

<div class="bg-no-repeat bg-left-top ..." style="background-image: url(...);"></div>
<div class="bg-no-repeat bg-top ..." style="background-image: url(...);"></div>
<div class="bg-no-repeat bg-right-top ..." style="background-image: url(...);"></div>
<div class="bg-no-repeat bg-left ..." style="background-image: url(...);"></div>
<div class="bg-no-repeat bg-center ..." style="background-image: url(...);"></div>
<div class="bg-no-repeat bg-right ..." style="background-image: url(...);"></div>
<div class="bg-no-repeat bg-left-bottom ..." style="background-image: url(...);"></div>
<div class="bg-no-repeat bg-bottom ..." style="background-image: url(...);"></div>
<div class="bg-no-repeat bg-right-bottom ..." style="background-image: url(...);"></div>

Applying conditionally

Hover, focus, and other states

Tailwind lets you conditionally apply utility classes in different states using variant modifiers. For example, use hover:bg-top to only apply the bg-top utility on hover.

<div class="bg-center hover:bg-top ..." style="background-image: url(...)"></div>

For a complete list of all available state modifiers, check out the Hover, Focus, & Other States documentation.

Breakpoints and media queries

You can also use variant modifiers to target media queries like responsive breakpoints, dark mode, prefers-reduced-motion, and more. For example, use md:bg-top to apply the bg-top utility at only medium screen sizes and above.

<div class="bg-center md:bg-top ..." style="background-image: url(...)"></div>

To learn more, check out the documentation on Responsive Design, Dark Mode and other media query modifiers.

Using custom values

Customizing your theme

By default, Tailwind provides nine background-position utilities. You change, add, or remove these by editing the theme.backgroundPosition section of your Tailwind config.

module.exports = {
  theme: {
    backgroundPosition: {
      bottom: 'bottom',
      'bottom-4': 'center bottom 1rem',
      center: 'center',
      left: 'left',
      'left-bottom': 'left bottom',
      'left-top': 'left top',
      right: 'right',
      'right-bottom': 'right bottom',
      'right-top': 'right top',
      top: 'top',
      'top-4': 'center top 1rem',
    }
  }
}

Learn more about customizing the default theme in the theme customization documentation.

Arbitrary values

If you need to use a one-off background-position value that doesn’t make sense to include in your theme, use square brackets to generate a property on the fly using any arbitrary value.

<div class="bg-[center_top_1rem]">
  <!-- ... -->
</div>

Learn more about arbitrary value support in the arbitrary values documentation.