height:100% VS min-height:100%

I use this css to set a <div> to maximum height

Can anyone give me a general answer, what's the difference between height: 100% and min-height: 100% ?

Here's an explanation from the W3C (link):

The following algorithm describes how the two properties [min-height and max-height] influence the used value of the 'height' property:

The tentative used height is calculated (without 'min-height' and 'max-height') following the rules under "Calculating heights and margins" above.

If this tentative height is greater than 'max-height', the rules above are applied again, but this time using the value of 'max-height' as the computed value for 'height'.

If the resulting height is smaller than 'min-height', the rules above are applied again, but this time using the value of 'min-height' as the computed value for 'height'.

To summarize: Basically, if the min-height is greater than what the height would otherwise be (whether an explicit height is specified or not), then the min-height is used as the height. If the min-height is less than what the height would otherwise be, then the min-height has no effect.

For the specific case you give, specifying height:100% makes the height of the element equal to the height of the containing block. (However this could potentially be overruled, for instance if you also specified max-height:50%.) Specifying min-height:100% means that if the computed height is less than 100%, in fact even if you explicitly specified a height less than 100%, it is treated as if you said height:100%. Note that one key difference is that max-height can overrule height but cannot overrule min-height (because max-height is considered after height but before min-height according to the W3C recommendation as quoted above).

height: 100% will go to 100% of the container height; min-height: 100% should expand past the container's height if it needs too.

Keep in mind that min-height is not supported in IE.