The <cite> HTML element is used to mark up the title of a cited creative work. The reference may be in an abbreviated form according to context-appropriate conventions related to citation metadata.
On this page
<cite>: The Citation element
Try it
Attributes
This element only includes the global attributes.
Usage notes
In the context of the <cite> element, a creative work that might be cited could be, for example, one of the following:
- A book
 - A research paper
 - An essay
 - A poem
 - A musical score
 - A song
 - A play or film script
 - A film
 - A television show
 - A game
 - A sculpture
 - A painting
 - A theatrical production
 - A play
 - An opera
 - A musical
 - An exhibition
 - A legal case report
 - A computer program
 - A website
 - A web page
 - A blog post or comment
 - A forum post or comment
 - A tweet
 - A Facebook post
 - A written or oral statement
 - And so forth.
 
To include a reference to the source of quoted material which is contained within a <blockquote> or <q> element, use the cite attribute on the element.
Typically, browsers style the contents of a <cite> element in italics by default. To avoid this, apply the CSS font-style property to the <cite> element.
Examples
html
<p>More information can be found in <cite>[ISO-0000]</cite>.</p>
   Result
Technical summary
| Content categories | Flow content, phrasing content, palpable content. | 
|---|---|
| Permitted content | Phrasing content. | 
| Tag omission | None, both the starting and ending tag are mandatory. | 
| Permitted parents | Any element that accepts phrasing content. | 
| Implicit ARIA role | No corresponding role | 
| Permitted ARIA roles | Any | 
| DOM interface | HTMLElement Up to Gecko 1.9.2 (Firefox 4) inclusive, Firefox implements the HTMLSpanElement interface for this element. | 
        
Specifications
| Specification | 
|---|
| HTML Standard  # the-cite-element  | 
      
Browser compatibility
| Desktop | Mobile | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chrome | Edge | Firefox | Internet Explorer | Opera | Safari | WebView Android | Chrome Android | Firefox for Android | Opera Android | Safari on IOS | Samsung Internet | |
cite | 
       1 | 12 | 1 | Yes | 15 | ≤4 | 4.4 | 18 | 4 | 14 | ≤3.2 | 1.0 | 
See also
- The element 
<blockquote>for long quotations. - The element 
<q>for inline quotations and theciteattribute. 
© 2005–2023 MDN contributors.
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License v2.5 or later.
 https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/cite