---
title: Background
---
## Background
The background property lets you use images and colors to create backgrounds for your web pages.

### Background Color
The background color property allows you to choose the color of your element. This can be the background for the entire page or the background of one section of your page.
* An element is a piece of HTML such as a header or paragraph on a web page.

Here is an example of setting the background color for a web page to green.
```css
  body {
    background-color: green;
  }
```
![fullbackground](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/26467304/31036038-845567f2-a538-11e7-8e6c-8a52bb0d44b8.png)

Here is an example of setting the colors for two elements. This will set the background of the header 
to purple and the rest of the page to blue.

```css
  body {
    background-color: blue;
  }
  h1 {
    background–color: purple;
  }
```
![twobackground](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/26467304/31036152-0607936a-a539-11e7-9e9f-a5e60ade042d.png)

In CSS color can be defined in three ways:
* A valid color name such as `blue`
* A HEX value such as `#FFFFF` (This is the hex value for white.)
* An RGB value such as `rgb(76,175,80)` (This is the RGB value for light green.)

### Background Images
You can use the background image property to set an image as a background for an element. 
The image is repeated by default so that it covers the entire element.
```css
body {
  background-image: url("barn.jpg");
}
```
![image](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/26467304/31036366-eb1fc260-a539-11e7-835d-e3f935a22c86.png)


You can also link pictures or gifs that you find online by using their link (ie. from Google Images a search).
```css
body {
  background-image: url("https://mdn.mozillademos.org/files/11983/starsolid.gif");
}
```

### Background Image - The Repeat Property
The background image is repeated both vertically (up and down) and horizontally (across the web page) by default.
You can use the background-repeat property to repeat the image vertically or horizontally.

Here is an example that repeats the image vertically.
```css
body {
  background-image: url("barn.jpg");
  background-repeat: repeat-y;
}
```
![vertical](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/26467304/31039770-8962c7a6-a54e-11e7-9d25-4fb09760d219.PNG)

You can repeat the image horizontally by setting the background-repeat property to “repeat-x”.
```css
body {
  background-image: url("barn.jpg");
  background-repeat: repeat-x;
}
```

You can also use the background-repeat property to set an image to not repeat.
```css
body {
  background-image: url("barn.jpg");
  background-repeat: no-repeat;
}
```
![norepeat](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/26467304/31039801-c8761efc-a54e-11e7-8bb9-ec5b88885a50.PNG)

### Background Image – The Position Property
You can use the position property to specify where your image will be located on a web page.
```css
body {
  background-image: url("barn.jpg");
  background-repeat: no-repeat;
  background-position: right top;
}
```
![position](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/26467304/31039828-077d1038-a54f-11e7-8aa6-092253ca92b8.PNG)

### Background Image – The Fixed Position
You can use the background-attachment property to set an image to a fixed position.
A fixed position makes it so an image does not scroll with the rest of the page.
```css
body {
  background-image: url("barn.jpg");
  background-repeat: no-repeat;
  background-position: right top;
  background-attachment: fixed;
}
```

![fixed](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/26467304/31039859-39612c92-a54f-11e7-93ca-9d7bcb938225.PNG)

### Background Gradients
A gradient is a transition between two or more colors and can be used via CSS similar to a background image.  

The syntax of a gradient background can be quite complex and is often still used with vendor prefixes due to inconsistencies between supported browsers.

The <a href='http://www.colorzilla.com/gradient-editor/' target="_blank" rel='nofollow'>Colorzilla Gradient Editor</a> is a great online tool for generating custom gradients and the associated css markup.

### Background – The Shorthand Property
You can write the background properties on a single line. This is called the shorthand property.
```css
body {
  background: url("barn.jpg") no-repeat right top;
}
```
You can leave out properties you don’t need when using the shorthand property, but the properties 
must be used in a certain order. The order is:
* color
* image
* repeat
* attachment
* position

### Multiple Background Images
You can specify multiple background images in a single background property.
```css
body {
  background: url("barn.jpg"), url("stars.jpg"), linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 255, 0.5), rgba(255, 255, 0, 0.5));
}
```
The first image (or gradient) specified is the most on top, the second comes after, and so on. 
If one of the elements is not correct due to its URL or its syntax, the whole line will be ignored by the browser.

### Some Basic Background Properties of CSS
The CSS background properties are used to define the background effects for elements.

CSS background properties:
background-color
background-image
background-repeat
background-attachment
background-position

You can refer to the following link to W3 schools to know more about background and related stuffs in CSS.
<a href = "https://www.w3schools.com/css/css_background.asp">Background reference to W3</a>

### Other Resources
* <a href='http://cloford.com/resources/colours/500col.htm' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>List of color values</a>
* <a href='http://colrd.com/create/palette/' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>Color Picker Tool</a>