---
icon: IconDirectory
title: 'pages'
head.title: Pages directory
---

The `pages/` directory is optional, meaning that if you only use [app.vue](/docs/directory-structure/app), vue-router won't be included, reducing your application bundle size.

# Pages directory

Nuxt will automatically integrate [Vue Router](https://next.router.vuejs.org/) and map `pages/` directory into the routes of your application.

::alert{type=warning}
Unlike components, your pages must have a single root element to allow Nuxt to apply route transitions between pages.
::

## Dynamic Routes

If you place anything within square brackets, it will be turned into a [dynamic route](https://next.router.vuejs.org/guide/essentials/dynamic-matching.html) parameter. You can mix and match multiple parameters and even non-dynamic text within a file name or directory.

If you need a catch-all route, you create it by using a file named like `[...slug].vue`. This will match _all_ routes under that path, and thus it doesn't support any non-dynamic text.

### Example

```bash
-| pages/
---| index.vue
---| users-[group]/
-----| [id].vue
```

Given the example above, you can access group/id within your component via the `$route` object:

```vue
<template>
  {{ $route.params.group }}
  {{ $route.params.id }}
</template>
```

Navigating to `/users-admins/123` would render:

```text
admins 123
```

## Nested Routes

We provide a semantic alias for `RouterView`, the `NuxtChild` component, for displaying the children components of a [nested route](https://next.router.vuejs.org/guide/essentials/nested-routes.html).

### Example

```bash
-| pages/
---| parent/
------| child.vue
---| parent.vue
```

To display the `child.vue` component, simply put the `<NuxtChild>` component inside the `parent.vue` component:

```html{}[pages/parent/child.vue]
<template>
  <div>
    <h3>child.vue</h3>
  </div>
</template>
```

```html{}[pages/parent.vue]
<template>
  <div>
    <h1>parent.vue</h1>
    <NuxtChild />
  </div>
</template>

<!-- output -->
<template>
  <div>
    <h1>parent.vue</h1>
    <div>
      <h3>child.vue</h3>
    </div>
  </div>
</template>
```

The example file tree above should generate these routes:

```js
[
  {
    path: '/parent',
    component: '~/pages/parent.vue',
    name: 'parent',
    children: [
      {
        path: 'child',
        component: '~/pages/parent/child.vue',
        name: 'parent-child'
      }
    ]
  }
]
```