Cascading

Tomasz Bogusz

Relevant style declarations for a single HTML element can come among others from:

  • inline, internal and external CSS,

  • inheritance,

  • user-agent defaults (aka user-agent style sheets), and

  • user overrides.

The process of algorithmic determination of style declarations specifically applicable to a given HTML element, basing on inline, internal, external CSS, inheritance, user-agent defaults and user overrides, is called cascading.

The above-mentioned algorithmic determination process provided the foundation for the Cascading Style Sheets name.