- **Breakpoints are the building blocks of responsive design.** Use them to control when your layout can be adapted at a particular viewport or device size.
- **Use media queries to architect your CSS by breakpoint.** Media queries are a feature of CSS that allow you to conditionally apply styles based on a set of browser and operating system parameters. We most commonly use `min-width` in our media queries.
- **Mobile first, responsive design is the goal.** Bootstrap's CSS aims to apply the bare minimum of styles to make a layout work at the smallest breakpoint, and then layers on styles to adjust that design for larger devices. This optimizes your CSS, improves rendering time, and provides a great experience for your visitors.
## Available breakpoints
Bootstrap includes six default breakpoints, sometimes referred to as _grid tiers_, for building responsively. These breakpoints can be customized if you're using our source Sass files.
Each breakpoint was chosen to comfortably hold containers whose widths are multiples of 12. Breakpoints are also representative of a subset of common device sizes and viewport dimensions—they don't specifically target every use case or device. Instead, the ranges provide a strong and consistent foundation to build on for nearly any device.
For more information and examples on how to modify our Sass maps and variables, please refer to [the Sass section of the Grid documentation]({{< docsref "/layout/grid#sass" >}}).
## Media queries
Since Bootstrap is developed to be mobile first, we use a handful of [media queries](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Media_Queries/Using_media_queries) to create sensible breakpoints for our layouts and interfaces. These breakpoints are mostly based on minimum viewport widths and allow us to scale up elements as the viewport changes.
### Min-width
Bootstrap primarily uses the following media query ranges—or breakpoints—in our source Sass files for our layout, grid system, and components.