What command creates a new directory in Linux?

The Linux command that creates a new directory is mkdir, an abbreviation of “make directory.” For example, “mkdir reports” creates a directory named reports inside the current working directory, provided the user has permission to write there.

The -p option is especially useful for directory trees. “mkdir -p projects/2026/linux” creates each missing parent directory along the path and does not complain if an existing parent is already present. Without -p, mkdir normally fails when a requested parent directory does not exist. The -m option can set an initial permission mode when the directory is created.

The command is not interchangeable with nearby file utilities. touch usually creates an empty file or updates timestamps, cat reads or combines file contents, and rmdir removes empty directories. mkdir is a long-standing command found beyond Linux as well, including Unix, DOS, Windows, OS/2, and several other operating systems. On Windows command shells, md is commonly accepted as a shorter equivalent.