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Introduction

HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language. It is the standard language used to create and structure content on the web. Every webpage you visit in a browser is built using HTML.

What is HTML?

  • 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

Below is the structure of a basic HTML document:

<!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 document
  • The <html> element is the root element of an HTML page
  • The <head> element contains meta information about the HTML page
  • The <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 heading
  • The <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 <br> element). These elements are called empty elements. Empty elements do not have an end tag!

Web Browsers

The purpose of a web browser (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari) is to read HTML documents and display them correctly.

A browser does not display the HTML tags, but uses them to determine how to display the document:

HTML History

Since the early days of the World Wide Web, there have been many versions of HTML:

Year Version
1991 HTML 1.0 (Tim Berners-Lee)
1995 HTML 2.0
1997 HTML 3.2 (W3C Recommendation)
1999 HTML 4.01 (W3C Recommendation)
2000 XHTML 1.0
2014 HTML5 (W3C Recommendation)
2016 HTML 5.1
2017 HTML 5.2
Present HTML Living Standard (WHATWG)

Key Points to Remember

  • HTML is NOT a programming language — it is a markup language
  • HTML uses tags to describe web content
  • HTML tags are not case sensitive: <P> means the same as <p>, but lowercase is recommended
  • Every HTML page must have a <!DOCTYPE html> declaration at the top
  • The visible content sits inside the <body> element
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