Description

The HTML element <th> is used to define a table header cell.

A table cell can contain two types of information.

  • Element <th> for header information, which is rendered and displayed with bold font by the browsers.
  • Element <td> for data, which is rendered and displayed as a regular text.
  • Elements <th> and <td> are rendered and displayed differently by the browsers as mentioned above, without any additional CSS.

The below table summarizes its usage.

Usage Details
Placement It is a child of <tr> element.
Contents It can contain Block elements, Inline elements, and text.
Tags Both opening and closing tags are required.
Versions HTML 3.2, 4, 4.01, 5

Syntax

Here is the basic syntax of the <th> element.

<th>...</th>

Examples

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<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <title>Example - HTML Element th</title>
</head>
<body>
    <table>
        <caption>Products List</caption>
        <thead>
            <tr>
                <th>Product</th>
                <th>Sales</th>
            </tr>
        </thead>
        <tbody>
            <tr>
                <td>Bread</td>
                <td>10000</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>Butter</td>
                <td>3000</td>
            </tr>
        </tbody>
    </table>
</body>
</html>

Attributes

The following table shows the list of supported and unsupported attributes for the <th> element.

Attribute Type Details
Element-Specific Attributes The tag <th> has some element-specific attributes listed in the below table.
Global Attributes Like all other HTML tags, the tag <th> supports the HTML Global Attributes.
Event Attributes The tag <th> also supports the HTML Event Attributes.

Here is a list of attributes that are specific to the <th> element.

Attribute Value Required Description
abbr text No Provides a short abbreviated description of the header cell's content.
align left, right, center, justify, char No Obsolete
Specifies the alignment of header cell content.
axis text No Obsolete
Categorizes a group of related header cells.
bgcolor color No Obsolete
Sets the background color of a header cell.
char character No Obsolete
Sets the character to which header cell contents should align.
charoff number No Obsolete
Defines the number of characters by which header cell contents will be offset from the alignment characters specified by the char attribute.
colspan number No Specifies the number of columns spanned by the current header cell.
headers header-id No Specifies one or more header cells a cell is related to.
height length No Obsolete
Sets the height of the table header cell.
nowrap nowrap No Obsolete
This boolean attribute tells the browser to disable automatic text wrapping for this header cell.
rowspan number No Specifies the number of rows spanned by the current header cell.
scope col, colgroup, row, rowgroup No Specifies the set of data cells for which the current header cell provides header information.
sorted reversed, number No Specifies the sort direction of a column.
valign top, middle, bottom, baseline No Obsolete
Specifies the vertical alignment of content within a header cell.
width length No Obsolete
Sets the width of a header cell.

Browser Compatibility

The tag <th> is supported in all modern browsers.

  • Google Chrome 1+
  • Internet Explorer or Edge 2+
  • Firefox 1+
  • Apple Safari 1+
  • Opera 4+

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