# Course Categories

Course categories help organize your course catalog, making it easier for learners to find relevant courses.

## Creating a Category

1. From the administration panel, navigate to **Course categories**
2. Click **Add category**
3. Enter:
   * **Category code** — A short unique identifier
   * **Category name** — The display name (e.g., "Information Technology", "Management Skills")
   * **Allow adding courses in this category?** — Whether it allows courses to set this as a category, or it just serves as an intermediate level in a hierarchy
   * **Parent category** — (Optional) Place this category under another category to create a hierarchy
   * **Description** — (Optional)
   * **Image** — (Optional) Will represent this category, although it almost doesn't show anywhere
4. Press *Add category*

Chamilo creates 3 categories by default: *Language skills*, *PC Skills* and *Projects*. These can be renamed, removed or kept, depending on your needs.

## Category Hierarchy

![The course categories management page showing a nested tree of categories](/files/NFbW3oiokgtjT0roCY6q)

Categories can be nested to create a tree structure:

* Business
  * Management
  * Marketing
  * Finance
* Technology
  * Programming
  * Networking
  * Cybersecurity

Learners browsing the course catalog can navigate through this hierarchy to find courses.

## Managing Categories

* **Edit** — Change the category name, code, or parent
* **Move** — Change the position of a category in the list
* **Delete** — Remove a category. Courses in a deleted category are moved to "uncategorized."

## Tips

* **Keep it simple** — Use broad categories that learners can understand at a glance
* **Limit depth** — Avoid deeply nested categories. Two or three levels are usually sufficient.
* **Assign categories during course creation** — Encourage teachers to select a category when creating courses, so the catalog stays organized


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