Introduction to CSS Grid Layout

Template Areas

In our previous example, we learned how to create a basic layout by positioning items with grid lines. Another method for positioning items is to use named grid areas with the grid-template-areas and grid-area properties. The best way to explain this is with an example. Let's recreate the grid from our previous example with the grid-template-areas property:

.container {
  display: grid;
  width: 100%;
  height: 600px;
  grid-template-columns: 200px 1fr 1fr;
  grid-template-rows: 80px 1fr 1fr 100px;
  grid-gap: 1rem;
  grid-template-areas:
      "header header header"
      "sidebar content-1 content-1"
      "sidebar content-2 content-3"
      "footer footer footer";
}
      

Here we have defined three columns and four rows. Instead of placing each individual item, we can define the entire layout using the grid-template-areas property. We can then assign those areas to each grid item using the grid-area property.

Our HTML:

<div class="container">
  <div class="header">header</div>
  <div class="sidebar">sidebar</div>
  <div class="content-1">Content-1</div>
  <div class="content-2">Content-2</div>
  <div class="content-3">Content-3</div>
  <div class="footer">footer</div>
</div>
      

The rest of our CSS:

.header {
  grid-area: header;
}

.sidebar {
  grid-area: sidebar;
}

.content-1 {
  grid-area: content-1;
}

.content-2 {
  grid-area: content-2;
}

.content-3 {
  grid-area: content-3;
}

.footer {
  grid-area: footer;
}
      

Here is the result:

View on Codepen