`list-style-type` CSS property

The list-style-type CSS property sets the marker (such as a disc, character, or custom counter style) of a list item element.

Try it

list-style-type: space-counter;

list-style-type: disc;

list-style-type: circle;

list-style-type: "\1F44D";

<section class="default-example" id="default-example">
  <div>
    <p>NASA Notable Missions</p>
    <ul class="transition-all unhighlighted" id="example-element">
      <li>Apollo</li>
      <li>Hubble</li>
      <li>Chandra</li>
      <li>Cassini-Huygens</li>
    </ul>
  </div>
  <hr />
  <div class="note">
    <p>
      <code>space-counter</code> is defined with
      <a
        href="//developer.mozilla.org/docs/Web/CSS/Reference/At-rules/@counter-style"
        target="_parent"
        ><code>@counter-style</code></a
      >
    </p>
  </div>
</section>

.default-example {
  font-size: 1.2rem;
}

#example-element {
  width: 100%;
  background: #be094b;
  color: white;
}

section {
  text-align: left;
  flex-direction: column;
}

hr {
  width: 50%;
  color: lightgray;
  margin: 0.5em;
}

.note {
  font-size: 0.8rem;
}

.note a {
  color: #009e5f;
}

@counter-style space-counter {
  symbols: "\1F680" "\1F6F8" "\1F6F0" "\1F52D";
  suffix: " ";
}

Syntax

/* Partial list of types */
list-style-type: disc;
list-style-type: circle;
list-style-type: square;
list-style-type: decimal;
list-style-type: georgian;
list-style-type: trad-chinese-informal;
list-style-type: kannada;

/* <string> value */
list-style-type: "-";

/* Identifier matching an @counter-style rule */
list-style-type: custom-counter-style;

/* Keyword value */
list-style-type: none;

/* Global values */
list-style-type: inherit;
list-style-type: initial;
list-style-type: revert;
list-style-type: revert-layer;
list-style-type: unset;

The list-style-type property may be defined as any one of:

• a <custom-ident> value,
• a symbols() value,
• a <string> value, or
• the keyword none.

Note that:

• Some types require a suitable font installed to display as expected.
• The cjk-ideographic is identical to trad-chinese-informal; it exists for legacy reasons.

Values

<custom-ident>

An identifier matching the value of a @counter-style or one of the predefined styles:

symbols()

Defines an anonymous style of the list.

<string>

The specified string will be used as the item's marker.

none

No item marker is shown.

disc

A filled circle (default value).

circle

A hollow circle.

square

A filled square.

decimal

Decimal numbers, beginning with 1.

cjk-decimal

Han decimal numbers.

decimal-leading-zero

Decimal numbers, padded by initial zeros.

lower-roman

Lowercase roman numerals.

upper-roman

Uppercase roman numerals.

lower-greek

Lowercase classical Greek.

lower-alpha, lower-latin

Lowercase ASCII letters.

upper-alpha, upper-latin

Uppercase ASCII letters.

arabic-indic, -moz-arabic-indic

Arabic-Indic numbers.

armenian

Traditional Armenian numbering.

bengali, -moz-bengali

Bengali numbering.

cambodian/khmer

Cambodian/Khmer numbering.

cjk-earthly-branch, -moz-cjk-earthly-branch

Han "Earthly Branch" ordinals.

cjk-heavenly-stem, -moz-cjk-heavenly-stem

Han "Heavenly Stem" ordinals.

cjk-ideographic

Identical to trad-chinese-informal.

devanagari, -moz-devanagari

Devanagari numbering.

ethiopic-numeric

Ethiopic numbering.

georgian

Traditional Georgian numbering.

gujarati, -moz-gujarati

Gujarati numbering.

gurmukhi, -moz-gurmukhi

Gurmukhi numbering.

hebrew

Traditional Hebrew numbering.

hiragana

Dictionary-order hiragana lettering.

hiragana-iroha

Iroha-order hiragana lettering.

japanese-formal

Japanese formal numbering to be used in legal or financial documents. The kanjis are designed so that they can't be modified to look like another correct one.

japanese-informal

Japanese informal numbering.

kannada, -moz-kannada

Kannada numbering.

katakana

Dictionary-order katakana lettering.

katakana-iroha

Iroha-order katakana lettering.

korean-hangul-formal

Korean hangul numbering.

korean-hanja-formal

Formal Korean Han numbering.

korean-hanja-informal

Korean hanja numbering.

lao, -moz-lao

Laotian numbering.

lower-armenian

Lowercase Armenian numbering.

malayalam, -moz-malayalam

Malayalam numbering.

mongolian

Mongolian numbering.

myanmar, -moz-myanmar

Myanmar (Burmese) numbering.

oriya, -moz-oriya

Oriya numbering.

persian, -moz-persian

Persian numbering.

simp-chinese-formal

Simplified Chinese formal numbering.

simp-chinese-informal

Simplified Chinese informal numbering.

tamil, -moz-tamil

Tamil numbering.

telugu, -moz-telugu

Telugu numbering.

thai, -moz-thai

Thai numbering.

tibetan

Tibetan numbering.

trad-chinese-formal

Traditional Chinese formal numbering.

trad-chinese-informal

Traditional Chinese informal numbering.

upper-armenian

Traditional uppercase Armenian numbering.

disclosure-open

Symbol indicating that a disclosure widget such as <details> is opened.

disclosure-closed

Symbol indicating that a disclosure widget, like <details> is closed.

Refer to the All list style types example to see the above values in action. Details of all the available counter styles used by various cultures around the world can be found in Ready-made Counter Styles.

Non-standard extensions

Mozilla (Firefox) supports a few predefined types with a -moz- prefix.

• ethiopic-halehame: -moz-ethiopic-halehame
• ethiopic-halehame-am: -moz-ethiopic-halehame-am
• ethiopic-halehame-ti-er: -moz-ethiopic-halehame-ti-er
• ethiopic-halehame-ti-et: -moz-ethiopic-halehame-ti-et
• ethiopic-numeric: -moz-ethiopic-numeric
• hangul: -moz-hangul
• hangul-consonant: -moz-hangul-consonant
• urdu: -moz-urdu

See the compatibility table to check which browsers support which extension.

Description

The list-style-type property sets the marker (such as a disc, character, or custom counter style) of a list item element. The marker will be currentColor, the same as the computed color of the element it applies to.

Only a few elements (<li> and <summary>) have a default value of display: list-item. However, the list-style-type property may be applied to any element whose display value is set to list-item.

List style inheritance

Because list-style-type is inherited, it can be set on a parent element (commonly <ol> or <ul>) to make it apply to its list items. However, user-agent stylesheets set list-style-type on <ul>, <ol>, and <menu> elements, so nested lists use these default values instead of inheriting the ancestor list's value. To make nested lists inherit this value, set list-style-type: inherit on the nested list elements.

For example, in cases like this:

<ul>
  <li>One</li>
  <li>Two</li>
  <li>
    Three
    <ul>
      <li>Four</li>
      <li>Five</li>
      <li>Six</li>
    </ul>
  </li>
</ul>

Where a custom style is set on the outer list:

body > ul {
  list-style-type: square;
}

The inner list won't inherit the custom style unless you set it to inherit:

ul ul {
  list-style-type: inherit;
}

Accessibility

Safari will not recognize an ordered or unordered list as a list in the accessibility tree if it has a list-style-type value of none. This can be resolved by adding role="list" to the list's opening tag. To learn more about this and potential workarounds, see list-style.

Formal definition

Formal syntax

list-style-type = 
  <counter-style> |
  <string> |
  none

<counter-style> = 
  <counter-style-name> |
  symbols()

<counter-style-name> = 
  <custom-ident>

Examples

Setting list item markers

HTML

List 1
<ol class="normal">
  <li>Hello</li>
  <li>World</li>
  <li>What's up?</li>
</ol>

List 2
<ol class="shortcut">
  <li>Looks</li>
  <li>Like</li>
  <li>The</li>
  <li>Same</li>
</ol>

CSS

ol.normal {
  list-style-type: upper-alpha;
}

/* or use the shortcut "list-style": */
ol.shortcut {
  list-style: upper-alpha;
}

Result

All list style types

HTML

<ol>
  <li>Apollo</li>
  <li>Hubble</li>
  <li>Chandra</li>
  <li>Cassini-Huygens</li>
  <li>Spitzer</li>
</ol>

<h2>Choose a list style type:</h2>

<div class="container">
  <label for="disc">
    <input type="radio" id="disc" name="type" value="disc" />disc
  </label>

  <label for="circle">
    <input type="radio" id="circle" name="type" value="circle" />circle
  </label>

  <label for="square">
    <input type="radio" id="square" name="type" value="square" />square
  </label>

  <label for="decimal">
    <input type="radio" id="decimal" name="type" value="decimal" />decimal
  </label>

  <label for="cjk-decimal">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="cjk-decimal"
      name="type"
      value="cjk-decimal" />cjk-decimal
  </label>

  <label for="decimal-leading-zero">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="decimal-leading-zero"
      name="type"
      value="decimal-leading-zero" />decimal-leading-zero
  </label>

  <label for="lower-roman">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="lower-roman"
      name="type"
      value="lower-roman" />lower-roman
  </label>

  <label for="upper-roman">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="upper-roman"
      name="type"
      value="upper-roman" />upper-roman
  </label>

  <label for="lower-greek">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="lower-greek"
      name="type"
      value="lower-greek" />lower-greek
  </label>

  <label for="lower-alpha">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="lower-alpha"
      name="type"
      value="lower-alpha" />lower-alpha, lower-latin
  </label>

  <label for="upper-alpha">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="upper-alpha"
      name="type"
      value="upper-alpha" />upper-alpha, upper-latin
  </label>

  <label for="arabic-indic">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="arabic-indic"
      name="type"
      value="arabic-indic" />arabic-indic
  </label>

  <label for="armenian">
    <input type="radio" id="armenian" name="type" value="armenian" />armenian
  </label>

  <label for="bengali">
    <input type="radio" id="bengali" name="type" value="bengali" />bengali
  </label>

  <label for="cambodian">
    <input type="radio" id="cambodian" name="type" value="cambodian" />cambodian
  </label>

  <label for="cjk-earthly-branch">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="cjk-earthly-branch"
      name="type"
      value="cjk-earthly-branch" />cjk-earthly-branch
  </label>

  <label for="cjk-heavenly-stem">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="cjk-heavenly-stem"
      name="type"
      value="cjk-heavenly-stem" />cjk-heavenly-stem
  </label>

  <label for="cjk-ideographic">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="cjk-ideographic"
      name="type"
      value="cjk-ideographic" />cjk-ideographic
  </label>

  <label for="devanagari">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="devanagari"
      name="type"
      value="devanagari" />devanagari
  </label>

  <label for="ethiopic-numeric">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="ethiopic-numeric"
      name="type"
      value="ethiopic-numeric" />ethiopic-numeric
  </label>

  <label for="georgian">
    <input type="radio" id="georgian" name="type" value="georgian" />georgian
  </label>

  <label for="gujarati">
    <input type="radio" id="gujarati" name="type" value="gujarati" />gujarati
  </label>

  <label for="gurmukhi">
    <input type="radio" id="gurmukhi" name="type" value="gurmukhi" />gurmukhi
  </label>

  <label for="hebrew">
    <input type="radio" id="hebrew" name="type" value="hebrew" />hebrew
  </label>

  <label for="hiragana">
    <input type="radio" id="hiragana" name="type" value="hiragana" />hiragana
  </label>

  <label for="hiragana-iroha">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="hiragana-iroha"
      name="type"
      value="hiragana-iroha" />hiragana-iroha
  </label>

  <label for="japanese-formal">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="japanese-formal"
      name="type"
      value="japanese-formal" />japanese-formal
  </label>

  <label for="japanese-informal">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="japanese-informal"
      name="type"
      value="japanese-informal" />japanese-informal
  </label>

  <label for="kannada">
    <input type="radio" id="kannada" name="type" value="kannada" />kannada
  </label>

  <label for="katakana">
    <input type="radio" id="katakana" name="type" value="katakana" />katakana
  </label>

  <label for="katakana-iroha">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="katakana-iroha"
      name="type"
      value="katakana-iroha" />katakana-iroha
  </label>

  <label for="khmer">
    <input type="radio" id="khmer" name="type" value="khmer" />khmer
  </label>

  <label for="korean-hangul-formal">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="korean-hangul-formal"
      name="type"
      value="korean-hangul-formal" />korean-hangul-formal
  </label>

  <label for="korean-hanja-formal">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="korean-hanja-formal"
      name="type"
      value="korean-hanja-formal" />korean-hanja-formal
  </label>

  <label for="korean-hanja-informal">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="korean-hanja-informal"
      name="type"
      value="korean-hanja-informal" />korean-hanja-informal
  </label>

  <label for="lao">
    <input type="radio" id="lao" name="type" value="lao" />lao
  </label>

  <label for="lower-armenian">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="lower-armenian"
      name="type"
      value="lower-armenian" />lower-armenian
  </label>

  <label for="malayalam">
    <input type="radio" id="malayalam" name="type" value="malayalam" />malayalam
  </label>

  <label for="mongolian">
    <input type="radio" id="mongolian" name="type" value="mongolian" />mongolian
  </label>

  <label for="myanmar">
    <input type="radio" id="myanmar" name="type" value="myanmar" />myanmar
  </label>

  <label for="oriya">
    <input type="radio" id="oriya" name="type" value="oriya" />oriya
  </label>

  <label for="persian">
    <input type="radio" id="persian" name="type" value="persian" />persian
  </label>

  <label for="simp-chinese-formal">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="simp-chinese-formal"
      name="type"
      value="simp-chinese-formal" />simp-chinese-formal
  </label>

  <label for="simp-chinese-informal">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="simp-chinese-informal"
      name="type"
      value="simp-chinese-informal" />simp-chinese-informal
  </label>

  <label for="tamil">
    <input type="radio" id="tamil" name="type" value="tamil" />tamil
  </label>

  <label for="telugu">
    <input type="radio" id="telugu" name="type" value="telugu" />telugu
  </label>

  <label for="thai">
    <input type="radio" id="thai" name="type" value="thai" />thai
  </label>

  <label for="tibetan">
    <input type="radio" id="tibetan" name="type" value="tibetan" />tibetan
  </label>

  <label for="trad-chinese-formal">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="trad-chinese-formal"
      name="type"
      value="trad-chinese-formal" />trad-chinese-formal
  </label>

  <label for="trad-chinese-informal">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="trad-chinese-informal"
      name="type"
      value="trad-chinese-informal" />trad-chinese-informal
  </label>

  <label for="upper-armenian">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="upper-armenian"
      name="type"
      value="upper-armenian" />upper-armenian
  </label>

  <label for="disclosure-open">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="disclosure-open"
      name="type"
      value="disclosure-open" />disclosure-open
  </label>

  <label for="disclosure-closed">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="disclosure-closed"
      name="type"
      value="disclosure-closed" />disclosure-closed
  </label>

  <label for="moz-ethiopic-halehame">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="moz-ethiopic-halehame"
      name="type"
      value="-moz-ethiopic-halehame" />-moz-ethiopic-halehame
  </label>

  <label for="moz-ethiopic-halehame-am">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="moz-ethiopic-halehame-am"
      name="type"
      value="-moz-ethiopic-halehame-am" />-moz-ethiopic-halehame-am
  </label>

  <label for="ethiopic-halehame-ti-er">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="ethiopic-halehame-ti-er"
      name="type"
      value="ethiopic-halehame-ti-er" />ethiopic-halehame-ti-er
  </label>

  <label for="ethiopic-halehame-ti-et">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="ethiopic-halehame-ti-et"
      name="type"
      value="ethiopic-halehame-ti-et" />ethiopic-halehame-ti-et
  </label>

  <label for="hangul">
    <input type="radio" id="hangul" name="type" value="hangul" />hangul
  </label>

  <label for="hangul-consonant">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="hangul-consonant"
      name="type"
      value="hangul-consonant" />hangul-consonant
  </label>

  <label for="urdu">
    <input type="radio" id="urdu" name="type" value="urdu" />urdu
  </label>

  <label for="moz-ethiopic-halehame-ti-er">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="moz-ethiopic-halehame-ti-er"
      name="type"
      value="-moz-ethiopic-halehame-ti-er" />-moz-ethiopic-halehame-ti-er
  </label>

  <label for="moz-ethiopic-halehame-ti-et">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="moz-ethiopic-halehame-ti-et"
      name="type"
      value="-moz-ethiopic-halehame-ti-et" />-moz-ethiopic-halehame-ti-et
  </label>

  <label for="moz-hangul">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="moz-hangul"
      name="type"
      value="-moz-hangul" />-moz-hangul
  </label>

  <label for="moz-hangul-consonant">
    <input
      type="radio"
      id="moz-hangul-consonant"
      name="type"
      value="-moz-hangul-consonant" />-moz-hangul-consonant
  </label>

  <label for="moz-urdu">
    <input type="radio" id="moz-urdu" name="type" value="-moz-urdu" />-moz-urdu
  </label>
</div>

CSS

ol {
  font-size: 1.2rem;
}

.container {
  column-count: 3;
}

label {
  display: block;
}

input {
  margin: 0.4rem;
}

JavaScript

const container = document.querySelector(".container");
const list = document.querySelector("ol");

container.addEventListener("change", (event) => {
  list.setAttribute("style", `list-style-type: ${event.target.value}`);
});

Result

We're not limited to the list style types defined on this page or the specification. The @counter-style at-rule enables creating counters using any alphabet.

Specifications

Browser compatibility

See also

• list-style shorthand property
• list-style-image property
• list-style-position property
• ::marker pseudo-element
• CSS lists and counters module
• CSS counter styles module