Why Does My Absolutely Positioned Element Appear in the Wrong Place?

Misplaced Positioned Elements: Understanding Absolute and Fixed Positioning

Absolute and fixed positioning in CSS allow elements to be precisely placed within a document or viewport. However, sometimes elements may not appear where you expect them to. This is often due to a misunderstanding of how these positioning methods work.

The Issue with Static Positioning

When an element is positioned statically (the default), it flows with the rest of the document, taking its position from surrounding elements. In the given example, the grey-box div is positioned absolutely. However, the container has a relative position, not an absolute or fixed position. This means that the grey-box is still subject to the flow of the document and will be positioned relative to the container's static position.

Absolute and Fixed Positioning

Absolute positioning removes an element from the document's flow and positions it relative to its nearest positioned ancestor. If there is no positioned ancestor, it will be positioned relative to the document itself. Fixed positioning is similar to absolute, but it positions an element relative to the viewport rather than its ancestor.

In the first example, the grey-box is absolutely positioned, but its container is statically positioned. As discussed earlier, this means that the grey-box will be positioned relative to the container's static position, which is not at the top-left corner.

In the second example, the grey-box is moved before the orange-box. This causes the orange-box to occupy the space that the grey-box would have taken up. Therefore, the grey-box appears after the orange-box.

Correcting the Issue

To position the grey-box correctly, the container must be positioned absolutely or fixed. This will allow the grey-box to be positioned relative to the container's absolute or fixed position rather than its static position.

Here is the corrected code:

.container {
  background: lightblue;
  position: absolute;
}

Now, the grey-box should appear in the top-left corner of the container as expected.

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