How to set an image's width and height without stretching it?

Question

If I have:

#logo {     width: 400px;     height: 200px; } 

then

<img id="logo" src="logo.jpg"/> 

will stretch to fill that space. I want the image to stay the same size, but for it to take up that much space in the DOM. Do I have to add an encapsulating <div> or <span>? I hate adding markup for styling.

Answer 1

Yes you need an encapsulating div:

<div id="logo"><img src="logo.jpg"></div> 

with something like:

#logo { height: 100px; width: 200px; overflow: hidden; } 

Other solutions (padding, margin) are more tedious (in that you need to calculate the right value based on the image's dimensions) but also don't effectively allow the container to be smaller than the image.

Also, the above can be adapted much more easily for different layouts. For example, if you want the image at the bottom right:

#logo { position: relative; height: 100px; width: 200px; } #logo img { position: absolute; right: 0; bottom: 0; } 

Answer 2

2017 answer

CSS object fit works in all current browsers. It allows the img element to be larger without stretching the image.

You can add object-fit: cover; to your CSS.