Each post in WordPress is filed under one or more categories. This aids in navigation and allows posts to be grouped with others of similar content.

Each category may be assigned to a Category Parent so that you may set up a hierarchy within the category structure. In creating categories, recognize that each category name must be unique. Thus, even if two categories have two different parents, they must still have different names.

In the default WordPress installation, links to your categories are shown in two different places on your weblog. First, WordPress lists these category links in your sidebar. Second, WordPress shows all the categories to which a given post belongs under that of that post. When someone viewing your weblog clicks on one of these category links, a page with all the posts belonging to that category will be displayed.

The Manage Categories SubPanel allows you to create new categories, edit or delete existing ones, and organize your categories hierarchically. The table of the categories contains the following columns:

ID - Like posts and pages, categories have a unique identification number. You can't edit it, and there's no need to. The ID numbers are used by WordPress only internally.
Name - The name of the category. Recall each name must be unique.
Description - Categories may have an optional description. By default, the description is shown to viewers when they hover over the category's link.
# Posts - The number of posts which are members of the category.

Action:
Edit - This button allows you to modify the category's name, description or parent.
Delete - This button deletes the category. As you are reminded toward the bottom of this SubPanel, deleting a category does not delete the posts it contains. Instead, these posts are moved into the default category, which is defined in bold in the note below the Table of Categories

1. Upon entering the WordPress Administration Panel, click Manage
2. Click Categories
3. Click "add_new"
4. Enter the name of the Category in the "Name" field
5. Using the "Category parent" pull-down menu option, choose a Category parent or choose Uncategorized.
6. Enter a Description (optional) of the category being created
7. Click "Add Category"

This document is FAQ1075.