title: Why specify @charset "UTF-8"; in your CSS file?
body: <p>I've been seeing this instruction as the very first line of numerous CSS files that have been turned over to me:</p>
  
  <pre><code>@charset "UTF-8";
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>What does it do, and is this at-rule necessary?  </p>
  
  <p>Also, if I include this meta tag in my "head" element, would that eliminate the need to have it also present within my CSS files?</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8"&gt;
  </code></pre>