What are the allowed tags inside a <li>?

139
votes

I have been searching for the list of tags that are available inside a <li>, but I couldn't find any reference.

Is it possible that any standards-compliant HTML 4+ block element is allowed in them?

4
htmlhtml-lists

4 Answers

209
votes

TL;DR: an <li> can contain any element that is valid in <body>.

In the HTML 4.01 spec for lists you’ll find the relevant extract of the DTD:

<!ELEMENT LI - O (%flow;)* -- list item -->

This specifies that an <li> may contain flow content, which is the collection of all block and inline elements.

The HTML5 spec for an <li> is the same in that it also allows any flow content.

7
votes

It's a block level element so pretty much anything goes. Trouble only comes when you're putting block level elements inside inline ones.

4
votes

Yup, pretty much. You can have lists inside lists (either inside the <li> or just loose inside the <ol>/<ul> the inner list must be inside an <li>), block elements and inline elements.

To me it wouldn't make much sense to put a <table> inside an <li>, but even that's still valid.

1
votes

You can use the W3C's Markup Validation Service to test against your cases to know whether or not your markup is valid.

This validator checks the markup validity of Web documents in HTML, XHTML, SMIL, MathML, etc.