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HTML Elements

An HTML element is everything from the start tag to the end tag:

Start tag *	Element content	End tag *
p	This is a paragraph	/p
a href="default.htm"	This is a link	/a
br /

* The start tag is often called the opening tag. The end tag is often called the closing tag.

HTML Element Syntax

• An HTML element starts with a start tag / opening tag
• An HTML element ends with an end tag / closing tag
• The element content is everything between the start and the end tag
• Some HTML elements have empty content
• Empty elements are closed in the start tag
• Most HTML elements can have attributes

Tip: You will learn about attributes in the next chapter of this tutorial.

HTML Elements

Most HTML elements can be nested (can contain other HTML elements).

HTML documents consist of nested HTML elements.

HTML Document Example

html body pThis is my first paragraph./p /body /html

The example above contains 3 HTML elements.

HTML Example Explained

The p element:

p This is my first paragraph. /p

The p element defines a paragraph in the HTML document.
The element has a start tag p and an end tag /p.
The element content is: This is my first paragraph.

The body element:

body p This is my first paragraph./p /body

The body element defines the body of the HTML document.
The element has a start tag body and an end tag /body.
The element content is another HTML element (a p element).

The html element:

html body p This is my first paragraph./p /body /html

The html element defines the whole HTML document.
The element has a start tag html and an end tag /html.
The element content is another HTML element (the body element).

Don't Forget the End Tag

Most browsers will display HTML correctly even if you forget the end tag:

p This is a paragraph p This is a paragraph

The example above will work in most browsers, but don't rely on it. Forgetting the end tag can produce unexpected results or errors.

Note: Future version of HTML will not allow you to skip end tags.