HTML li Tag

HTML li: Main Tips

• You can use HTML li tags as descendants of <ol>, <ul>, or <menu> elements to define a single item in a list.
• Both starting and ending tags are mandatory.
• You can style HTML li elements using CSS.

Using li in HTML

HTML <li> tag defines a list item within a list:

<p>This list is unordered:</p>
<ul>
  <li>Cacao</li>
  <li>Water</li>
  <li>Juice</li>
</ul>

<p>This list is ordered:</p>
<ol>
  <li>Cacao</li>
  <li>Water</li>
  <li>Juice</li>
</ol>

Note: you have to place HTML li tags in a parent element: <ol>, <ul>, or <menu>.

In most browsers, <li> element will be displayed with these default values:

li {
    display: list-item;
}

Using HTML <li> tags, you can also create lists within lists (nested lists):

<ul>
  <li>Cacao</li>
  <li>Water
    <ul>
      <li>Clean water</li>
      <li>Tap water</li>
    </ul>
  </li>
  <li>Juice</li>
</ul>

Theory is great, but we recommend digging deeper!

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Attributes for <li>

value defines the ordinal value of a list item:

<ol>
  <li value="100">Cacao</li>
  <li>Water</li>
  <li>Juice</li>
  <li>Beer</li>
  <li>Cola</li>
</ol>

value can only be used with numbered lists and defined in a number. It was deprecated in HTML4, but then brought back in HTML5.

The currently deprecated type attribute defined the kind of bullet point to use:

<ol>
  <li>Cacao</li>
  <li type="a">Water</li>
  <li>Juice</li>
</ol>

<ul>
  <li>Cacao</li>
  <li type="square">Water</li>
  <li>Juice</li>
</ul>

Note: instead of type, use CSS list-style-type property.

Browser support

Chrome

All

Edge

All

Firefox

1+

IE

All

Opera

All

Safari

All

Mobile browser support

Chrome

All

Firefox

4+

Opera

All

Safari

All