What are Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)?

Style sheets are a way to define and style the look of website pages. Style sheets allow web developers to separate the content code and design code. This allows the HTML to be used for the markup (programming) of the content and not the website design and layout. It also helps reduce code duplication.

The “cascading” part is where things start to get interesting.

The best way to explain CSS is to visualize a waterfall. Imagine the water is cascading down over the all sorts of rocks, both big and small on its way to the bottom. Along the way, several rocks help guide the water, but only the ones at the very bottom determine how it flows into the lake or river.

When multiple inter-connected style sheets are used instead of a single style sheet they are referred to as cascading style sheets. This means the information flows freely from one style sheet to another.

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