Web/HTML/Element/nav

The HTML <nav> element represents a section of a page whose purpose is to provide navigation links, either within the current document or to other documents. Common examples of navigation sections are menus, tables of contents, and indexes.

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Content categories	Flow content, sectioning content, palpable content.
Permitted content	Flow content.
Tag omission	None, both the starting and ending tag are mandatory.
Permitted parents	Any element that accepts flow content.
Implicit ARIA role	`navigation`
Permitted ARIA roles	No `role` permitted
DOM interface	`HTMLElement`

Attributes

This element only includes the global attributes.

Usage notes

It's not necessary for all links to be contained in a <nav> element. <nav> is intended only for major block of navigation links; typically the <footer> element often has a list of links that don't need to be in a <nav> element.
A document may have several <nav> elements, for example, one for site navigation and one for intra-page navigation. aria-labelledby can be used in such case to promote accessibility, see example.
User agents, such as screen readers targeting disabled users, can use this element to determine whether to omit the initial rendering of navigation-only content.

Examples

In this example, a <nav> block is used to contain an unordered list (<ul>) of links. With appropriate CSS, this can be presented as a sidebar, navigation bar, or drop-down menu.

<nav class="menu">
  <ul>
    <li><a href="#">Home</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">About</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">Contact</a></li>
  </ul>
</nav>

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
HTML Living StandardThe definition of '<nav>' in that specification.	Living Standard	No change since latest W3C snapshot.
HTML5The definition of '<nav>' in that specification.	Recommendation	Initial definition

Browser compatibility

Update compatibility data on GitHub

	Desktop						Mobile
	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari	Android webview	Chrome for Android	Firefox for Android	Opera for Android	Safari on iOS	Samsung Internet
`nav`	Chrome Full support 5	Edge Full support 12	Firefox Full support 4	IE Full support 9	Opera Full support 11.1	Safari Full support 5	WebView Android Full support Yes	Chrome Android Full support Yes	Firefox Android Full support 4	Opera Android Full support 11.1	Safari iOS Full support 4.2	Samsung Internet Android Full support Yes

Legend

Full support: Full support