Wordpress getting current category ID

Question

I'm trying to get the current ID of the category page I'm viewing.

I had checked the_category_ID

But this echo'd my result when I used

<?php $catID = the_category_ID(); ?>

Is there a way to get it to return the value to the variable so its hidden?

Answer 1

The current category ID is in the global $cat variable, when you are in a category page.

You can test it with:

<?php echo "Current Category ID is: " . $cat ;?>

when you are in for example this page http://example.com/category/test