Imagine you have a cardboard box, and you have a ping pong ball. Let's say the radius of the ping pong ball is 1 inch. Take the ping pong ball and shove it into the corner of the cardboard box until it's nestled in there nice and snug. Since the ping pong ball is round, it's not a perfect fit into the square corners. There's a little bit of space left in between the ball and the edges of the box. Imagine you took a knife and carved away that extra space until the box fit perfectly around the ping pong ball. Or just collapsed the cardboard around the ball. The resulting shape is a box with a border radius of 1 inch. A larger border radius means a larger ball (or circle) that defines the area to be carved away, which means a more gradual curve. As for the reason why 100px can look the same as 10px: There's a point at which the ball you're trying to fit into the corner becomes larger than the box itself, so increasing the border radius no longer changes the shape of the corners. In the simplest case, assuming we have a perfectly square box, this happens when the diameter of the ball equals the length of any side. Since diameter is twice the radius, increasing border radius stops "working" once the radius increases beyond 1/2 the length of each side. Answer from CatchACrab on reddit.com
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MDN Web Docs
developer.mozilla.org โ€บ en-US โ€บ docs โ€บ Web โ€บ CSS โ€บ Reference โ€บ Properties โ€บ border-radius
border-radius - CSS | MDN
2 weeks ago - The border-radius CSS property rounds the corners of an element's outer border edge. You can set a single radius to make circular corners, or two radii to make elliptical corners.
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W3Schools
w3schools.com โ€บ cssref โ€บ css3_pr_border-radius.php
CSS border-radius property
The border-radius property defines the radius of the element's corners. Tip: This property allows you to add rounded corners to elements! This property can have from one to four values.
Discussions

Can someone explain border-radius?
Imagine you have a cardboard box, and you have a ping pong ball. Let's say the radius of the ping pong ball is 1 inch. Take the ping pong ball and shove it into the corner of the cardboard box until it's nestled in there nice and snug. Since the ping pong ball is round, it's not a perfect fit into the square corners. There's a little bit of space left in between the ball and the edges of the box. Imagine you took a knife and carved away that extra space until the box fit perfectly around the ping pong ball. Or just collapsed the cardboard around the ball. The resulting shape is a box with a border radius of 1 inch. A larger border radius means a larger ball (or circle) that defines the area to be carved away, which means a more gradual curve. As for the reason why 100px can look the same as 10px: There's a point at which the ball you're trying to fit into the corner becomes larger than the box itself, so increasing the border radius no longer changes the shape of the corners. In the simplest case, assuming we have a perfectly square box, this happens when the diameter of the ball equals the length of any side. Since diameter is twice the radius, increasing border radius stops "working" once the radius increases beyond 1/2 the length of each side. More on reddit.com
๐ŸŒ r/Frontend
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3
December 24, 2021
html - The border-radius property and border-collapse:collapse don't mix. How can I use border-radius to create a collapsed table with rounded corners? - Stack Overflow
I am trying to make a table with rounded corners using the CSS border-radius property. The table styles I'm using look something like this: table { -moz-border-radius: 10px; -webkit-border-... More on stackoverflow.com
๐ŸŒ stackoverflow.com
html - Using a CSS border-radius much larger than an elements dimensions - Stack Overflow
Is there any issue with using a border-radius that is much larger than an element's dimensions? For example, if I wanted to make a class .circle like so: .circle { border-radius: 1000px; } So ... More on stackoverflow.com
๐ŸŒ stackoverflow.com
border-radius; in Safari : css
Hi, I was hoping you guys might be able to help me. Preface: I'm fairly new to CSS/front-end dev in general. I am creating circle thumbnails for... More on old.reddit.com
๐ŸŒ r/css
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CSS-Tricks
css-tricks.com โ€บ almanac โ€บ properties โ€บ b โ€บ border-radius
border-radius | CSS-Tricks
November 10, 2022 - Here is the code: div { height:250px; width:250px; background-image:url(image.jpg);} .round { border-radius: 60px; /* Prevent background color leak outs / border: 20px solid rgb(18, 50, 51); border: 20px solid rgba(18, 50, 51, 0.9); -webkit-background-clip: padding-box;/ for Safari / -moz-border-radius:360px;/ Firefox โ€“ alte Syntax */ } ... Using percentages is perfect for a responsive CSS Circle, but having it break below iOS 5.0 is a problem Iโ€™m having.
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Tailwind CSS
tailwindcss.com โ€บ docs โ€บ border-radius
border-radius - Borders - Tailwind CSS
Use utilities like rounded-s-md and rounded-se-xl to set the border radius using logical properties, which map to the appropriate corners based on the text direction:
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Border-radius
border-radius.com
CSS Border Radius Generator
CSS border radius generator for lazy people.
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W3Schools
w3schools.com โ€บ css โ€บ css3_borders.asp
CSS Rounded Corners
The CSS border-radius property is used to create rounded corners for elements.
Find elsewhere
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Reddit
reddit.com โ€บ r/frontend โ€บ can someone explain border-radius?
r/Frontend on Reddit: Can someone explain border-radius?
December 24, 2021 -

So, I've been doing some CSS challenges and they have some interesting forms, curves, overlapping elements and so on. I got the hang of them after a while, but by far, my biggest problem is with border-radii. I cannot understand how this works.

Yes, it makes rounded corners, but how it works, radius of what? And why I can give 10000000px and be the same computed value as 100px. Why it has 8 values?

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9elements
9elements.github.io โ€บ fancy-border-radius
Fancy Border Radius Generator
A visual generator to build organic looking shapes with the help of CSS3 border-radius property
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9elements
9elements.com โ€บ blog โ€บ css-border-radius-can-do-that
CSS Border-Radius Can Do That? - 9elements
October 19, 2018 - It is around for some years now, mostly used with a single value like this: border-radius: 1em and was maybe one of the most discussed/loved CSS3 features back in 2010 when css3please.com was your best friend.
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MDN Web Docs
developer.mozilla.org โ€บ en-US โ€บ docs โ€บ Web โ€บ CSS โ€บ border-top-left-radius
border-top-left-radius - CSS - MDN Web Docs - Mozilla
border-top-left-radius = <border-radius> <border-radius> = <slash-separated-border-radius-syntax> | <legacy-border-radius-syntax> <slash-separated-border-radius-syntax> = <length-percentage [0,โˆž]> [ / <length-percentage [0,โˆž]> ]? <legacy-border-radius-syntax> = <length-percentage [0,โˆž]>{1,2} <length-percentage> = <length> | <percentage> A single <length> value produces an arc of a circle. ... div { border-top-left-radius: 40px; background-color: lightgreen; border: solid 1px black; width: 100px; height: 100px; }
Top answer
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There is no issue here at all. You're free to apply the class wherever you'd like, no issues really. Elements smaller than (height or width is less than) 2000px will become circles, elements larger than (height or width is more than) 2000px will not become circles, but rather stay their original shapes but have largely rounded corners.

This was brought up in W3 here:

"If any horizontal radius is larger than half the width of the box, it is reduced to that value. If any vertical radius is larger than half the height of the box, it is reduced to that value. (There are four horizontal and four vertical radii.) This is an easy algorithm, because it looks at each radius independently of all others, but it disallows possibly useful borders that combine large and small radii and it may turn quarter circles into quarter ellipses." - The documentation of the border-radius property

I should mention that you can use percents as a value, 50% being the max that will create a circle given the element is a square originally. If the element is not a square then it will create an ellipse.

Also note that all values above 50% will be equivalent to 50% when applied to all corners (like the shorthand border-radius: 50% which applies it to each corner). As jbutler483 pointed out in the comments, if it is applied to individual corners, 50% is not the same as 100% because of how they combine with each other. Instead all values above 100% are equivalent to 100%.

It's also important to note that something like border: 50% and border: really-high-pixel-value can have different effects if the element is not square.

Also of note, you can use the CSS constant of infinity if you want to set a really high pixel value (you have to use calc(infinity * 1px)).

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This was W3 CSS issue-29, which was resolved following option 3 in the issue as documented in the spec.

If any adjacent border radii are so large that they intersect, then all border radii are reduced proportionally so that none intersect.

In the particular case that all four radii are the same on a square element, and the radii are larger than half of the box dimensions, they get reduced to half of the width/height so that they end up forming a circle.

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DEV Community
dev.to โ€บ justtanwa โ€บ css-border-radius-2hn3
CSS - Border Radius - DEV Community
July 10, 2022 - Anyway, today I want to talk about a very popular CSS property -> border-radius. This property allows you to create awesome looking elements with nice curved edges/corners.
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MDN Web Docs
developer.mozilla.org โ€บ en-US โ€บ docs โ€บ Web โ€บ CSS โ€บ border-top-right-radius
border-top-right-radius - CSS - MDN Web Docs - Mozilla
July 14, 2025 - border-top-right-radius = <border-radius> <border-radius> = <slash-separated-border-radius-syntax> | <legacy-border-radius-syntax> <slash-separated-border-radius-syntax> = <length-percentage [0,โˆž]> [ / <length-percentage [0,โˆž]> ]? <legacy-border-radius-syntax> = <length-percentage [0,โˆž]>{1,2} <length-percentage> = <length> | <percentage> A single <length> value produces an arc of a circle. ... div { border-top-right-radius: 40px; background-color: lightgreen; border: solid 1px black; width: 100px; height: 100px; }
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Honar Systems
honarsystems.com โ€บ home โ€บ css border radius with practical examples
CSS Border Radius With Practical Examples | Honar Systems
August 4, 2025 - The CSS border-radius property is used to round the corners of the outer border edges of an HTML element or tag. This feature allows you to completely round the corners of the elements.
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Tailwind CSS
v3.tailwindcss.com โ€บ docs โ€บ border-radius
Border Radius - Tailwind CSS
Use the rounded-s-*, rounded-e-*, rounded-ss-*, rounded-se-*, rounded-es-*, and rounded-ee-* utilities to set the border radius using logical properties, which map to the appropriate corners based on the text direction.
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CSS { In Real Life }
css-irl.info โ€บ logical-border-radius
CSS { In Real Life } | Logical Border Radius
December 15, 2022 - The first value is the radius is the horizontal direction, the second is in the vertical direction. So how about using the shorthand for unequal radii? Setting all of our radii to different values can result in uneven, organic-looking shapes. We can use the slash separator, first specifying the horizontal radii for each corner, then the vertical radii after the slash. div { border-radius: 2rem 8rem 8rem 9rem / 3rem 11rem 6rem 5rem; }
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HubSpot
blog.hubspot.com โ€บ website โ€บ css-border-radius-circle
How to Draw a Circle Using the CSS Border Radius Property
April 20, 2022 - Making an oval is a nearly identical process to making a perfect circle. You add the HTML element. But instead of assigning it an equal width and height, set them to be different. Then, set the CSS border-radius property to 50%. The result is an oval.
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Bootstrap
getbootstrap.com โ€บ docs โ€บ 5.3 โ€บ utilities โ€บ borders
Borders ยท Bootstrap v5.3
--#{$prefix}border-width: #{$border-width}; --#{$prefix}border-style: #{$border-style}; --#{$prefix}border-color: #{$border-color}; --#{$prefix}border-color-translucent: #{$border-color-translucent}; --#{$prefix}border-radius: #{$border-radius}; --#{$prefix}border-radius-sm: #{$border-radius-sm}; --#{$prefix}border-radius-lg: #{$border-radius-lg}; --#{$prefix}border-radius-xl: #{$border-radius-xl}; --#{$prefix}border-radius-xxl: #{$border-radius-xxl}; --#{$prefix}border-radius-2xl: var(--#{$prefix}border-radius-xxl); // Deprecated in v5.3.0 for consistency --#{$prefix}border-radius-pill: #{$border-radius-pill};
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Medium
prykhodko.medium.com โ€บ css-border-radius-how-does-it-work-bfdf23792ac2
CSS border-radius. How does it work? | by Anna Prykhodko | Medium
August 19, 2022 - Width of the border-box: 100px ... * 100% = 300px; two such radii: 600px; A radius of 100% is greater than the width of the border-box, and a radius of 50% is equal to that width, so in both cases, the corners are rounded ...