HTML is the standard markup language for creating Web pages.
What is HTML?
HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language.
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 are represented by tags.
HTML tags label pieces of content such as "heading", "paragraph", "table", and so on.
Browsers do not display the HTML tags, but use them to render the content of the page.
A Simple HTML Document
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Basic page</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>My First Heading</h1>
<p>My first paragraph.</p>
</body>
</html>Example Explained
The <!DOCTYPE html> declaration defines this document to be HTML5.
The <html> element is the root element of an HTML page.
The <head> element contains meta information about the document.
The <title> element specifies a title for the document.
The <body> element contains the visible page content.
The <h1> element defines a large heading.
The <p> element defines a paragraph.
HTML Tags
HTML tags are element names surrounded by angle brackets:
<tagname>content goes here...</tagname>
HTML tags normally come in pairs like <p> and </p>.
The first tag in a pair is the start tag, the second tag is the end tag.
The end tag is written like the start tag, but with a forward slash inserted before the tag name.
Pro Tip:
The start tag is also called the opening tag, and the end tag the closing tag.
HTML Page Structure
Below is a visualization of an HTML page structure:
Pro Tip:
Only the content inside the <body> section (the white area above) is displayed in a browser.
The <!DOCTYPE> Declaration
The <!DOCTYPE> declaration represents the document type, and helps browsers to display web pages correctly.
It must only appear once, at the top of the page (before any HTML tags).
The <!DOCTYPE> declaration is not case sensitive.
The <!DOCTYPE> declaration for HTML5 is:
<!DOCTYPE html>
For more information, see this HTML article.