How Does CSS Stylesheet Order Affect Style Precedence?

CSS Stylesheet Override Order

When multiple CSS stylesheets are included in an HTML document, the question arises: which styles take precedence? In this specific scenario, where the HTML header contains references to both 'styles.css' and 'master.css', the order of precedence becomes crucial.

To understand how the cascading element of CSS applies to stylesheet references, it is essential to delve into the official CSS specification:

[https://www.w3.org/TR/2011/REC-CSS2-20110607/cascade.html#cascade](https://www.w3.org/TR/2011/REC-CSS2-20110607/cascade.html#cascade)

In essence, the fundamental rule of CSS override precedence governs that more specific rules prevail over more general ones. Specificity is calculated based on the number of IDs, classes, and element names employed in the selector. Notably, the '!important' declaration holds the highest precedence, overriding all other rules of equal specificity.

In the provided example, 'styles.css' contains page-specific styles, while 'master.css' serves as a global stylesheet to reset browser defaults. To determine which stylesheet takes priority, their specificities must be compared. If they have identical specificity, the last rule appearing in the HTML will be applied.

It is important to remember that the cascading nature of CSS applies to stylesheet references as well as individual CSS rules within a stylesheet. This means that the order in which stylesheets are referenced in the HTML header will directly impact which styles are ultimately applied to the page elements.

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