Can I set the height of a div based on a percentage-based width?

Question

Let's say I've got a div that has a width of 50% of the body. How do I make its height equal to that value? So that when the browser window is 1000px wide, the div's height and width are both 500px.

Answer 1

This can be done with a CSS hack (see the other answers), but it can also be done very easily with JavaScript.

Set the div's width to (for example) 50%, use JavaScript to check its width, and then set the height accordingly. Here's a code example using jQuery:

$(function() {
    var div = $('#dynamicheight');
    var width = div.width();
    
    div.css('height', width);
});

#dynamicheight
{
    width: 50%;
    
    /* Just for looks: */
    background-color: cornflowerblue;
    margin: 25px;
}

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

<div id="dynamicheight"></div>

If you want the box to scale with the browser window on resize, move the code to a function and call it on the window resize event. Here's a demonstration of that too (view example full screen and resize browser window):

$(window).ready(updateHeight);
$(window).resize(updateHeight);

function updateHeight()
{
    var div = $('#dynamicheight');
    var width = div.width();
    
    div.css('height', width);
}

#dynamicheight
{
    width: 50%;
    
    /* Just for looks: */
    background-color: cornflowerblue;
    margin: 25px;
}

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

<div id="dynamicheight"></div>