An HTML element usually consists of a start tag and end tag, with the content inserted in between:
The HTML element is everything from the start tag to the end tag:
| Start tag | Element content | End tag |
|---|---|---|
| <h1> | My First Heading | </h1> |
| <p> | My first paragraph. | </p> |
| <br> |
HTML elements with no content are called empty elements. Empty elements do not have an end tag, such as the
element (which indicates a line break).
See this example:
The <html> element defines the whole document.
It has a start tag <html> and an end tag </html>.
The element content is another HTML element (the <body> element).
See this example:
The <body> element defines the document body.
It has a start tag <body> and an end tag </body>.
The element content is two other HTML elements (<h1> and <p>).
See this example:
The <h1> element defines a heading.
It has a start tag <h1> and an end tag </h1>.
The element content is: My First Heading.
See this example:
The <p> element defines a paragraph.
It has a start tag <p> and an end tag </p>.
The element content is: My first paragraph.
See this example:
HTML elements with no content are called empty elements.
<br> is an empty element without a closing tag (the <br> tag defines a line break).
Empty elements can be "closed" in the opening tag like this: <br />.
HTML5 does not require empty elements to be closed. But if you want stricter validation, or if you need to make your document readable by XML parsers, you must close all HTML elements properly.
HTML tags are not case sensitive: <P> means the same as <p>.
The HTML5 standard does not require lowercase tags, but W3C recommends lowercase in HTML, and demands lowercase for stricter document types like XHTML.
