Having easy-to-use navigation is very important for any website. Today you can learn how to create a top navigation bar with CSS.

With CSS you can transform boring HTML menus into good-looking navigation bars. The navigation bar can be vertical, or horizontal.
With CSS you can transform boring HTML menus into good-looking navigation bars. The navigation bar can be vertical, or horizontal.
A navigation bar needs standard HTML as a base. A navigation bar is basically a list of links, so using the <ul> and <li> elements makes perfect sense (you can review your knowledge about HTML list tags here.)
Step 1: Add HTML
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>
<ul>
<li><a href="#home">Home</a></li>
<li><a href="#news">News</a></li>
<li><a href="#contact">Contact</a></li>
<li><a href="#about">About</a></li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>
Output:
Step 2: Add CSS
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<style>
body {
margin: 0;
font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
}
.topnav {
overflow: hidden;
background-color: #264653;
}
.topnav a {
float: left;
color: #f2f2f2;
text-align: center;
padding: 14px 16px;
text-decoration: none;
font-size: 17px;
}
.topnav a:hover {
background-color: #e9c46a;
color: black;
}
.topnav a.active {
background-color: #2a9d8f;
color: white;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div class="topnav">
<a class="active" href="#home">Home</a>
<a href="#news">News</a>
<a href="#contact">Contact</a>
<a href="#about">About</a>
</div>
<div style="padding-left:16px">
<h3>Top Navigation Example</h3>
<p>Some content..</p>
</div>
</body>
</html>
Output:
To build a vertical navigation bar, you can style the <a> elements inside the list, in addition to the code from 1st step:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
ul {
list-style-type: none;
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
}
li a {
display: block;
width: 100px;
background-color: #e9c46a;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<ul>
<li><a href="#home">Home</a></li>
<li><a href="#news">News</a></li>
<li><a href="#contact">Contact</a></li>
<li><a href="#about">About</a></li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>
Output:
You can create a basic vertical navigation bar with a yellow background color of the links when the user moves the mouse over them:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
ul {
list-style-type: none;
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
width: 200px;
background-color: #2a9d8f;
}
li a {
display: block;
color: #000;
padding: 8px 16px;
text-decoration: none;
}
li a:hover {
background-color: #e9c46a;
color: white;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<ul>
<li><a href="#home">Home</a></li>
<li><a href="#news">News</a></li>
<li><a href="#contact">Contact</a></li>
<li><a href="#about">About</a></li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>
Output:
Enjoy coding!
Read also:
How to create equal height columns with CSS?