HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language
HTML is the standard markup language for creating Web pages
HTML describes the structure of a Web page
HTML consists of a series of elements
HTML elements tell the browser how to display the content
HTML elements label pieces of content such as "this is a heading", "this is a paragraph", "this is a link", etc.
A Simple HTML Document
Example
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Page Title</title>
</head>
<body><h1>My First Heading</h1>
<p>My first paragraph.</p></body>
</html>Example Explained
The
<!DOCTYPE html>
declaration defines that this document is an HTML5 documentThe
<html>
element is the root element of an HTML pageThe
<head>
element contains meta information about the HTML pageThe
<title>
element specifies a title for the HTML page (which is shown in the browser's title bar or in the page's tab)The
<body>
element defines the document's body, and is a container for all the visible contents, such as headings, paragraphs, images, hyperlinks, tables, lists, etc.The
<h1>
element defines a large headingThe
<p>
element defines a paragraph
What is an HTML Element?
An HTML element is defined by a start tag, some content, and an end tag:
<tagname> Content goes here... </tagname>
The HTML element is everything from the start tag to the end tag:
<h1>My First Heading</h1>
<p>My first paragraph.</p>
- | Start tag | Element content | End tag | | --- | --- | --- | | <h1> | My First Heading | </h1> | | <p> | My first paragraph. | </p> | | <br> | none | none |
Note: Some HTML elements have no content (like the
element). These elements are called empty elements. Empty elements do not have an end tag!