This document describes the most common ways people use React Router with various tools in the React Ecosystem.
Most modern React projects manage their dependencies using a package manager like npm or Yarn. To add React Router to an existing project, the first thing you should do is install the necessary dependencies with the tool of your choice:
$ npm install react-router-dom@6
$ yarn add react-router-dom@6
$ pnpm add react-router-dom@6
Follow the instructions in the React documentation to set up a new project with Create React App, then follow the installation instructions above to install React Router in your project.
Once your project is set up and React Router is installed as a dependency, open the src/index.js in your text editor. Import BrowserRouter from react-router-dom near the top of your file and wrap your app in a <BrowserRouter>:
import * as React from "react";
import * as ReactDOM from "react-dom";
import { BrowserRouter } from "react-router-dom";
import "./index.css";
import App from "./App";
import * as serviceWorker from "./serviceWorker";
ReactDOM.render(
<BrowserRouter>
<App />
</BrowserRouter>,
document.getElementById("root")
);
Now you can use React Router anywhere in your app! For a simple example, open src/App.js and replace the default markup with some routes:
import * as React from "react";
import { Routes, Route, Link } from "react-router-dom";
import "./App.css";
function App() {
return (
<div className="App">
<h1>Welcome to React Router!</h1>
<Routes>
<Route path="/" element={<Home />} />
<Route path="about" element={<About />} />
</Routes>
</div>
);
}
Now, still in src/App.js, create your route components:
// App.js
function Home() {
return (
<>
<main>
<h2>Welcome to the homepage!</h2>
<p>You can do this, I believe in you.</p>
</main>
<nav>
<Link to="/about">About</Link>
</nav>
</>
);
}
function About() {
return (
<>
<main>
<h2>Who are we?</h2>
<p>
That feels like an existential question, don't you
think?
</p>
</main>
<nav>
<Link to="/">Home</Link>
</nav>
</>
);
}
Go ahead and start your app by running npm start, and you should see the Home route when your app starts running. Click the "About" link to see your <About> route, and voilà! You've successfully set up React Router using Create React App! 🥳
When it's time to deploy your app to production, be sure to follow Create React App's instructions on deploying with React Router to be sure your server is configured correctly.
Follow the instructions in the Parcel documentation to set up a new project, then follow the installation instructions above to install React Router in your project.
In your project's package.json, add a start script so you can open your project in a browser during development.
"scripts": {
"start": "parcel index.html"
}
Once the project is set up and your dependencies are installed, create a new .babelrc file at the root of your project:
{
"presets": ["@babel/preset-react"]
}
Go to the index.js file in your project and import the necessary functions from react, react-dom, and react-router-dom and mount a React app in a div with the ID of root:
// index.js
import * as React from "react";
import * as ReactDOM from "react-dom";
import { BrowserRouter } from "react-router-dom";
import App from "./App.js";
ReactDOM.render(
<BrowserRouter>
<App />
</BrowserRouter>,
document.getElementById("root")
);
In your index.html, create the root div in the document body above the script tag. It's also helpful to provide a noscript fallback message for users who may have disabled JavaScript, unless you plan on server-rendering your app later.
<body>
<noscript
>You need to enable JavaScript to run this
app.</noscript
>
<div id="root"></div>
<script src="./index.js"></script>
</body>
Now that React and React Router are set up create a new file App.js and add some routes and components:
// App.js
import * as React from "react";
import { Routes, Route, Link } from "react-router-dom";
function App() {
return (
<div>
<header>
<h1>Welcome to React Router!</h1>
</header>
<Routes>
<Route path="/" element={<Home />} />
<Route path="about" element={<About />} />
</Routes>
</div>
);
}
function Home() {
return (
<>
<main>
<h2>Welcome to the homepage!</h2>
<p>You can do this, I believe in you.</p>
</main>
<nav>
<Link to="/about">About</Link>
</nav>
</>
);
}
function About() {
return (
<>
<main>
<h2>Who are we?</h2>
<p>
That feels like an existential question, don't you
think?
</p>
</main>
<nav>
<Link to="/">Home</Link>
</nav>
</>
);
}
export default App;
Now start your app by running npm start, and you should see the Home route when your app starts running. Click the "About" link to see your About route, and voilà! You successfully set up React Router using Parcel! 🥳
Follow the instructions in the webpack documentation to set up a new project, then follow the installation instructions above to install React Router in your project.
Setting up a new React project in webpack is a bit more involved than Parcel or Create React App. Because webpack is a low-level tool that allows you to fine-tune your build to your liking, you may want to read the webpack documentation or check out webpack configurations in other repos to understand how to build your own.
Once you have webpack configured and the necessary dependencies installed, somewhere in your code (probably towards the root of your React component tree) you can import the modules you need from react-router-dom.
import {
BrowserRouter,
Routes,
Route,
} from "react-router-dom";
function App() {
return (
<BrowserRouter>
<div>
<h1>Hello, React Router!</h1>
<Routes>
<Route path="/" element={<Home />} />
</Routes>
</div>
</BrowserRouter>
);
}
One of the quickest ways to add React and React Router to a website is to use good ol' <script> tags and global variables. React Router is compatible with React 16.8+. Just add the following <script> tags to your HTML, just before the closing </body> tag:
<!-- Other HTML for your app goes here -->
<!-- The node we will use to put our app in the document -->
<div id="root"></div>
<!-- Note: When deploying to production, replace "development.js"
with "production.min.js" in each of the following tags -->
<!-- Load React and React DOM -->
<!-- See https://reactjs.org/docs/add-react-to-a-website.html to learn more -->
<script src="https://unpkg.com/react@>=16.8/umd/react.development.js" crossorigin></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/react-dom@>=16.8/umd/react-dom.development.js" crossorigin></script>
<!-- Load history -->
<script src="https://unpkg.com/history@5/umd/history.development.js" crossorigin></script>
<!-- Load React Router and React Router DOM -->
<script src="https://unpkg.com/react-router@6/umd/react-router.development.js" crossorigin></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/react-router-dom@6/umd/react-router-dom.development.js" crossorigin></script>
<!-- A simple example app -->
<script>
var e = React.createElement;
var Router = ReactRouterDOM.BrowserRouter;
var Routes = ReactRouterDOM.Routes;
var Route = ReactRouterDOM.Route;
ReactDOM.render(
(
e(Router, null, (
e(Routes, null, (
e(Route, {
element: e('div', null, 'Hello, React Router!')
})
))
))
),
document.getElementById('root')
);
</script>
</body>
Although this method is a nice way to get up and running quickly, it does load some code that you may not make use of in your app. React Router is designed as a collection of many small components and functions that allow you to use as little of the library as you actually need.
In order to do this, you'll need to build your website with a JavaScript bundler like Webpack or Parcel. The rest of the installation methods on this page describe how to get started using these tools.