<h1>–<h6>: The HTML Section Heading elements

The HTML <h1>–<h6> elements represent six levels of section headings. <h1> is the highest section level and <h6> is the lowest.

The source for this interactive example is stored in a GitHub repository. If you'd like to contribute to the interactive examples project, please clone https://github.com/mdn/interactive-examples and send us a pull request.

Attributes

These elements only include the global attributes.

Usage notes

• Heading information may be used by user agents, for example, to construct a table of contents for a document automatically.
• Avoid using heading tags to resize text. Instead, use the CSS font-size property. Headings use size to indicate their relative importance, but CSS is preferred for general-purpose resizing.
• Avoid skipping heading levels: always start from <h1>, next use <h2> and so on.
• You should only use one <h1> per page. Using more than one will not result in an error, but using only one is seen as a best practice. It makes logical sense — <h1> is the most important heading, and tells you what the purpose of the overall page is. You wouldn't have a book with more than one title, or a movie with more than one name! Having a single top-level title is also arguably better for screenreader users, and SEO.

Examples

All headings

The following code shows all the heading levels, in use.

<h1>Heading level 1</h1>
<h2>Heading level 2</h2>
<h3>Heading level 3</h3>
<h4>Heading level 4</h4>
<h5>Heading level 5</h5>
<h6>Heading level 6</h6>

Here is the result of this code:

Example page

The following code shows a few headings with some content under them.

<h1>Heading elements</h1>
<h2>Summary</h2>
<p>Some text here...</p>

<h2>Examples</h2>
<h3>Example 1</h3>
<p>Some text here...</p>

<h3>Example 2</h3>
<p>Some text here...</p>

<h2>See also</h2>
<p>Some text here...</p>

Here is the result of this code:

Accessibility concerns

Navigation

A common navigation technique for users of screen reading software is jumping from heading to heading to quickly determine the content of the page. Because of this, it is important to not skip one or more heading levels. Doing so may create confusion, as the person navigating this way may be left wondering where the missing heading is.

Don't

<h1>Heading level 1</h1>
<h3>Heading level 3</h3>
<h4>Heading level 4</h4>

Do

<h1>Heading level 1</h1>
<h2>Heading level 2</h2>
<h3>Heading level 3</h3>

Nesting

Headings may be nested as subsections to reflect the organization of the content of the page. Most screen readers can also generate an ordered list of all the headings on a page, which can help a person quickly determine the hierarchy of the content:

1. h1 Beetles
   1. h2 Etymology
   2. h2 Distribution and Diversity
   3. h2 Evolution
      1. h3 Late Paleozoic
      2. h3 Jurassic
      3. h3 Cretaceous
      4. h3 Cenozoic
   4. h2 External Morphology
      1. h3 Head
         1. h4 Mouthparts
      2. h3 Thorax
         1. h4 Prothorax
         2. h4 Pterothorax
      3. h3 Legs
      4. h3 Wings
      5. h3 Abdomen

When headings are nested, heading levels may be "skipped" when closing a subsection.

• Headings • Page Structure • WAI Web Accessibility Tutorials
• MDN Understanding WCAG, Guideline 1.3 explanations
• Understanding Success Criterion 1.3.1 | W3C Understanding WCAG 2.0
• MDN Understanding WCAG, Guideline 2.4 explanations
• Understanding Success Criterion 2.4.1 | W3C Understanding WCAG 2.0
• Understanding Success Criterion 2.4.6 | W3C Understanding WCAG 2.0
• Understanding Success Criterion 2.4.10 | W3C Understanding WCAG 2.0

Labeling section content

Another common navigation technique for users of screen reading software is to generate a list of sectioning content and use it to determine the page's layout.

Sectioning content can be labeled using a combination of the aria-labelledby and id attributes, with the label concisely describing the purpose of the section. This technique is useful for situations where there is more than one sectioning element on the same page.

Example

<header>
  <nav aria-labelledby="primary-navigation">
    <h2 id="primary-navigation">Primary navigation</h2>
    <!-- navigation items -->
  </nav>
</header>

<!-- page content -->

<footer>
  <nav aria-labelledby="footer-navigation">
    <h2 id="footer-navigation">Footer navigation</h2>
    <!-- navigation items -->
  </nav>
</footer>

In this example, screen reading technology would announce that there are two <nav> sections, one called "Primary navigation" and one called "Footer navigation". If labels were not provided, the person using screen reading software may have to investigate each nav element's contents to determine their purpose.

• Using the aria-labelledby attribute
• Labeling Regions • Page Structure • W3C WAI Web Accessibility Tutorials

Specifications

Browser compatibility

See also

• <p>
• <div>
• <section>