CSS help centering page

I am trying to make the background colour of my container fill the whole page, and still have the container with my text and photos be centered in the page. When I changed the width to 100% the colour filled the page.
<div id=container "width: 100%">
Inside that div I made a div container2 with all my data. It is currently at the left side of the page, but I would like it to stay in the center. Is there a class or style that I can apply to this div to do this?

I am not a web designer and I'm only doing this on a family business website, so please be kind.
Thank you

 

Simplest way? Put your background color on the body element.

body {
    background-color: #eee;
    margin: 0; }

Code (markup):

We zero the body's margin to kill the 8px default margin on body.

For the container element, set a proportional width with a maximum.

#container {
    margin: 0 auto;
    max-width: 48em; /*this is reasonable for a two column page; just don't let it get too wide
                       to comfortably read*/
    width: 95%; /*gives a minimum spacing on either side of the content block*/ }

Code (markup):

gary

 

Send me the link of your page I can help you with that. (to have a better idea of what you are trying to achieve)

 

Thank you Gary. That worked perfectly and I appreciated the simplicity.
Nancy