The Difference Between <div> and <span>

Both <div> and <span> elements are types of containers, but with some different qualities. By default, a <div> element has infinite width (at least to the browser edge), which can be seen by applying a border to one, like this:

<div style="border:1px solid green;">Hello</div>

A <span> element, however, is only as wide as the text it contains. Therefore, the following line of HTML creates a border only around the word “Hello,” which does not extend to the righthand edge of the browser:

<span style="border:1px solid green;">Hello</span>

Also, <span> elements follow text or other objects as they wrap around, and can therefore have a complicated border. For example, in Example 18-2, CSS has been used to make the background of all <div> elements yellow, to make all <span> elements cyan, and to add a border to both, before then creating a few example <span> and <div> sections.

Example 18-2. <div> and <span> example
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <head>
        <title>Div and span example</title>
        <style>
           div,span { border :1px solid black; }
           div      { background-color:yellow; }
           span     { background-color:cyan;   }
        </style>
    </head>
    <body>
        <div>This text is within a div tag</div>
        This isn't. <div>And this is again.</div><br />

        <span>This text is inside a span tag.</span>
        This isn't. <span>And this is again.</span><br/><br />

        <div>This is a larger amount of text in a that wraps around
        to the next line of the browser</div><br />

        <span>This is a larger amount of text in a span that wraps around
        to the next line of the browser</span>
    </body>
</html>

Figure 18-4 shows what this example looks like in a web browser. Although it appears only in shades of gray in the print version of this book, the figure clearly shows how <div> elements extend to the righthand edge of a browser and force following content to appear at the start of the first available position below them.

A variety of elements of differing width
Figure 18-4. A variety of elements of differing width

The figure also shows how <span> elements keep to themselves and only take up the space required to hold their content, without forcing subsequent content to appear below them.

For example, in the bottom two examples of the figure, you can see that when <div> elements wrap around the screen edge they retain a rectangular shape, whereas <span> elements simply follow the flow of the text (or other contents) they contain.

Note

Since <div> tags can only be rectangular, they are better suited for containing objects such as images, boxouts, quotations, and so on, while <span> tags are best used for holding text or other attributes that are placed one after another inline, and which should flow from left to right (or right to left, in some languages).