HTML Elements

HTML documents are defined by HTML elements.

HTML Elements

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

Start tag *	Element content	End tag *
	This is a paragraph
	This is a link

* 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

(You will learn about element attributes in the next chapter of this tutorial)

Nested HTML Elements

Most HTML elements can be nested (can contain other HTML elements).
HTML documents consist of nested HTML elements.

HTML Document Example

This is my first paragraph

The example above contains 3 HTML elements.

Example Explained

The element:

This is my first paragraph

The
element defines a paragraph in the HTML document
The element has a start tag
and an end tag

The element content is: This is my first paragraph

The element:

This is my first paragraph

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

The element:

This is my first paragraph

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

Don't Forget the End Tag

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

This is a paragraph

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.

Empty HTML Elements

HTML elements without content are called empty elements. Empty elements can be closed in the start tag.

is an empty element without a closing tag (it defines a line break).

In XHTML, XML, and future versions of HTML, all elements must be closed.

Adding a slash to the start tag, like
, is the proper way of closing empty elements, accepted by HTML, XHTML and XML.

Even if
works in all browsers, writing
instead is more future proof.