How to center a floated image gallery

Question

I would like the content of the .container to be centered. I am using the float:left property to create the gallery. It is also part of the code to resize and crop the thumbnails.

Any way to do this at all?

CSS:

.grid-item { 
    float: left;
    width: 175px;
    height: 120px;
    overflow: hidden;
}
.grid-item img {
    display: block;
    max-width: 100%;
    border: 2px solid #fff;
    border-radius: 5px;
    margin: 0 auto;
}

HTML:

<div class="container text-center">
    <div id="links">
        <a href="img.jpg" title="" class="grid-item" data-gallery>
            <img src="img.jpg" alt="" class="img-rounded">
        </a>
        <a href="img.jpg" title="" class="grid-item" data-gallery>
            <img src="img.jpg" alt="" class="img-rounded">
        </a>
        <a href="img.jpg" title="" class="grid-item" data-gallery>
            <img src="img.jpg" alt="" class="img-rounded">
        </a>
    </div>
</div>

Answer 1

You should use flexbox to align your contents and you can read the comments in the CSS as to why which property is meant for. Hope, it helps.

#links{
display: flex;  /*Generates a flexbox layout with default flex direction as row */
  width: 100%; /* Not really required */
  align-items: center; /*Aligns contents vertically */
  justify-content: space-around; /*Aligns contents horizontally */
  text-align: center; /*Aligns further text in the center */
  flex-direction:row; /*By default its row, you can change to column for vertical alignment */
  flex-flow:row wrap; /*To wrap items in other row when no more can be fit in the same row*/
}

.grid-item {
  /* flex:1; If you need them to grow or shrink flexibly */
  width: 175px;
  height: 120px;
  overflow: hidden;
}

.grid-item img {
  display: block;
  max-width: 100%;
  border: 2px solid #fff;
  border-radius: 5px;
  margin: 0 auto;
}

<div class="container text-center">
  <div id="links">
    <a href="http://via.placeholder.com/400x400" title="" class="grid-item" data-gallery>
      <img src="http://via.placeholder.com/400x400" alt="" class="img-rounded">
    </a>
    <a href="http://via.placeholder.com/400x400" title="" class="grid-item" data-gallery>
      <img src="http://via.placeholder.com/400x400" alt="" class="img-rounded">
    </a>
    <a href="http://via.placeholder.com/400x400" title="" class="grid-item" data-gallery>
      <img src="http://via.placeholder.com/400x400" alt="" class="img-rounded">
    </a>
  </div>
</div>