The CENTER Tag

A whole element whose only job was to centre everything inside it.

In 2026: It still centres, in every browser, which is why it never quite left. It was the one block-level presentational tag important enough to get its own element, and HTML5 removed it anyway. The modern spelling is text-align for inline things and margin auto for blocks.

Where it came from: Netscape Navigator 1.0, 1994, then HTML 3.2. Deprecated in HTML 4.01, removed from HTML5, still rendered by every browser. MDN ↗

<center>
  <h2>My Home Page</h2>
  <p>Every line in here sits in the middle, text and images alike.</p>
  <img src="https://xbawx.com/inc/img/demo/navbar.gif" width="400" height="40" alt="">
</center>

<!-- The 2026 version -->
<div style="text-align:center">inline things centre with text-align</div>
<div style="width:220px; margin:0 auto; border:1px solid #999">a block uses margin auto</div>