How do I stretch a background image to cover the entire HTML element?

I'm trying to get a background image of a HTML element (body, div, etc.) to stretch its entire width and height.

Not having much luck. Is it even possible or do I have to do it some other way besides it being a background image?

My current css is:

body {
	background-position: left top;
	background-image: url(_images/home.jpg);
	background-repeat: no-repeat;
}

Thanks in advance.

Edit: I'm not keen on maintaining the CSS in Gabriel's suggestion so I'm changing the layout of the page instead. But that seems like the best answer so I'm marking it as such.

<style>
    { margin: 0; padding: 0; }
                
    html { 
        background: url('images/yourimage.jpg') no-repeat center center fixed; 
        -webkit-background-size: cover;
        -moz-background-size: cover;
        -o-background-size: cover;
        background-size: cover;
    }
</style>

Use the background-size property: http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-background/#the-background-size

In short you can try this....

<div data-role="page" style="background:url('backgrnd.png'); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: 100% 100%;" >

Where I have used few css and js...

<link rel="stylesheet" href="css/jquery.mobile-1.0.1.min.css" />
<script src="js/jquery-1.7.1.min.js"></script>
<script src="js/jquery.mobile-1.0.1.min.js"></script>

And it is working fine for me.

Not sure that stretching a background image is possible. If you find that it's not possible, or not reliable in all of your target browsers, you could try using a stretched img tag with z-index set lower, and position set to absolute so that other content appears on top of it.

Let us know what you end up doing.

Edit: What I suggested is basically what's in gabriel's link. So try that :)

To expand on @PhiLho answer, you can center a very large image (or any size image) on a page with:

{ 
background-image: url(_images/home.jpg);
background-repeat:no-repeat;
background-position:center; 
}

Or you could use a smaller image with a background color that matches the background of the image (if it is a solid color). This may or may not suit your purposes.

{ 
background-color: green;
background-image: url(_images/home.jpg);
background-repeat:no-repeat;
background-position:center; 
}

If you need to stretch your background image while resizing the screen and you don't need compatibility with older browser versions this will do the work:

body {
    background-image: url('../images/image.jpg');
    background-repeat: no-repeat;
    background-size: cover;
}

If you have a large landscape image, this example here resizes the background in portrait mode, so that it displays on top, leaving blank on the bottom:

html, body {
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0;
    min-height: 100%;
}

body {
    background-image: url('myimage.jpg');
    background-position-x: center;
    background-position-y: bottom;
    background-repeat: no-repeat;
    background-attachment: scroll;
    -webkit-background-size: cover;
    -moz-background-size: cover;
    -o-background-size: cover;
    background-size: cover;
}

@media screen and (orientation:portrait) {
    body {
        background-position-y: top;
        -webkit-background-size: contain;
        -moz-background-size: contain;
        -o-background-size: contain;
        background-size: contain;
    }
}

The following code I use mostly for achieving the asked effect:

body {
    background-image: url('../images/bg.jpg');
    background-repeat: no-repeat;
    background-size: 100%;
}

background: url(images/bg.jpg) no-repeat center center fixed; 
-webkit-background-size: cover;
-moz-background-size: cover;
-o-background-size: cover;
background-size: cover;

It works for me

.page-bg {
  background: url("res://background");
  background-position: center center;
  background-repeat: no-repeat;
  background-size: 100% 100%;
}

You cannot in pure CSS. Having an image covering the whole page behind all other components is probably your best bet (looks like that's the solution given above). Anyway, chances are it will look awful anyway. I would try either an image big enough to cover most screen resolutions (say up to 1600x1200, above it is scarcer), to limit the width of the page, or just to use an image that tile.

image{

background-size: cover;
  background-repeat: no-repeat;
  background-position: center;
  padding: 0 3em 0 3em; 
margin: -1.5em -0.5em -0.5em -1em; 
  width: absolute;
  max-width: 100%; 

Simply make a div to be the direct child of body (with the class name bg for example), encompassing all other elements in the body, and add this to the CSS file:

.bg {
    background-image: url('_images/home.jpg');//Put your appropriate image URL here
    background-size: 100% 100%; //You need to put 100% twice here to stretch width and height
}

Refer to this link: https://www.w3schools.com/css/css_rwd_images.asp Scroll down to the part that says:

> 2. If the background-size property is set to "100% 100%", the background image will stretch to cover the entire content area

There it shows the 'img_flowers.jpg' stretching to the size of the screen or browser regardless of how you resize it.