What is HTML?

HTML is the standard markup language for creating Web pages.
  • 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

HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language. It is used to design web pages using markup language. HTML is the combination of Hypertext and Markup language. Hypertext defines the link between the web pages. Markup language is used to define the text document within tag which defines the structure of web pages. This language is used to annotate (make notes for the computer) text so that a machine can understand it and manipulate text accordingly. Most of markup (e.g. HTML) languages are human readable. Language uses tags to define what manipulation has to be done on the text.

HTML is a markup language which is used by the browser to manipulate text, images and other content to display it in required format. HTML was created by Tim Berners-Lee in 1991. The first ever version of HTML was HTML 1.0 but the first standard version was HTML 2.0 which was published in 1999.

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 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

Getting started with HTML
Covers the absolute basics of HTML, to get you started — we define elements, attributes, and other important terms, and show where they fit in the language. We also show how a typical HTML page is structured and how an HTML element is structured, and explain other important basic language features. Along the way, we'll play with some HTML to get you interested!
What’s in the head? Metadata in HTML
The head of an HTML document is the part that is not displayed in the web browser when the page is loaded. It contains information such as the page <title>, links to CSS (if you want to style your HTML content with CSS), links to custom favicons, and metadata (data about the HTML, such as who wrote it, and important keywords that describe the document).
HTML text fundamentals
One of HTML's main jobs is to give text meaning (also known as semantics), so that the browser knows how to display it correctly. This article looks at how to use HTML to break up a block of text into a structure of headings and paragraphs, add emphasis/importance to words, create lists, and more.
Creating hyperlinks
Hyperlinks are really important — they are what makes the web a web. This article shows the syntax required to make a link and discusses best practices for links.
Advanced text formatting
There are many other elements in HTML for formatting text that we didn't get to in the HTML text fundamentals article. The elements here are less well-known, but still useful to know about. In this article, you'll learn about marking up quotations, description lists, computer code and other related text, subscript and superscript, contact information, and more.
Document and website structure
As well as defining individual parts of your page (such as "a paragraph" or "an image"), HTML is also used to define areas of your website (such as "the header," "the navigation menu," or "the main content column.") This article looks into how to plan a basic website structure and how to write the HTML to represent this structure.
Debugging HTML
Writing HTML is fine, but what if something goes wrong, and you can't work out where the error in the code is?