Display a div width 100% with margins

I want to display an expandable div (width: 100%) with margins...

#page {
  background: red;
  float: left;
  width: 100%;
  height: 300px;
}

#margin {
  background: green;
  float: left;
  width: 100%;
  height: 300px;
  margin: 10px;
}

<div id="page">
  <div id="margin">
    "some content here"
  </div>
</div>

You can use calc() css function (browser support).

#page {
  background: red;
  float: left;
  width: 100%;
  height: 300px;
}

#margin {
  background: green;
  float: left;
  width: -moz-calc(100% - 10px);
  width: -webkit-calc(100% - 10px);
  width: -o-calc(100% - 10px);
  width: calc(100% - 10px);
  height: 300px;
  margin: 10px;
}​

Alternatively, try using padding instead of margin and box-sizing: border-box (browser support):

#page {
    background: red;
    width: 100%;
    height: 300px;
    padding: 10px;
}

#margin {
    box-sizing: border-box;
    background: green;
    width: 100%;
    height: 300px;
}

Sometimes it's better to do the opposite and give the parent div padding instead:

LIVE DEMO

What I did was change the CSS of #page to:

#page {
    padding: 3%;
    width: 94%; /* 94% + 3% +3% = 100% */
    
    /* keep the rest of your css */
    /* ... */
}

Then delete the margin from #margin

Note: this also adds 3% to the top and bottom (so 6% to the height) which makes it a little taller than 300px - so if you need exactly 300px, you could do something like padding:10px 3%; and change the height:280px; to add up to 300px again.

You can use the following CSS to achieve the desired result:

#page {
   background: red;
   overflow: auto;
}

#margin {
   background: green;
   height: 280px;
   margin: 10px
}

The correct way to achieve this by standard is:

#margin {
   background: green;
   height: 280px;
   margin: 10px;
   width: auto;
   display: block;
}

For LESS users only:

Using the nice solution of Vukašin Manojlović doesn't work out of the box because LESS executes + or - operations during the LESS compilation. One solution is to escape LESS so that it doesn't execute the operation.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17904088/disable-less-css-overwriting-calc

@someMarginVariable = 15px;

margin: @someMarginVariable;
width: calc(~"100% - "@someMarginVariable*2);
width: -moz-calc(~"100% - "@someMarginVariable*2);
width: -webkit-calc(~"100% - "@someMarginVariable*2);
width: -o-calc(~"100% - "@someMarginVariable*2);

or can use a mixin like:

.fullWidthMinusMarginPaddingMixin(@marginSize,@paddingSize) {
  @minusValue: (@marginSize+@paddingSize)*2;
  padding: @paddingSize;
  margin: @marginSize;
  width: calc(~"100% - "@minusValue);
  width: -moz-calc(~"100% - "@minusValue);
  width: -webkit-calc(~"100% - "@minusValue);
  width: -o-calc(~"100% - "@minusValue);
}

If possible, try to use padding with box-sizing instead, on #page element

#page {
    padding: 10px;
    box-sizing: border-box;
    background: red;
    float: left;
    width: 100%;
    height: 300px;
}
#margin {
    background: green;
    float: left;
    width: 100%;
    height: 100%;
}