A LIST chunk contains a list, or ordered sequence, of subchunks. LIST chunks also include an additional field in the first 4 bytes of the data field. This additional field contains the list type of the field, which is a four-character code identifying the contents of the list. For example, a LIST chunk with a list type of INFO can contain ICOP and ICRD chunks providing copyright and creation date information.

If an application recognizes the list type, it should know how to interpret the sequence of subchunks. However, since a LIST chunk may contain only subchunks (after the list type), an application that does not know about a specific list type can still navigate through the sequence of subchunks.