What Is HTML?

HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language used to create and structure content on the World Wide Web. It uses tags—keywords wrapped in angle brackets—to describe elements such as headings, paragraphs, images, links and forms. Web browsers read HTML files and render them into the pages users see.

Key takeaways

• HTML defines the structure and semantics of web content.
• “HyperText” enables navigation via clickable links; “Markup” applies meaning and presentation to text and media.
• HTML files are plain text with tags; browsers interpret those tags to render pages.
• Modern web pages combine HTML (structure), CSS (presentation), and JavaScript (behavior).
• HTML5 evolved into the HTML Living Standard, adding multimedia and richer APIs.

How HTML works

• Documents are written as plain text and saved with a .html extension.
• Tags (e.g.,

  , , ) mark content types; some tags have opening and closing forms, others are self-closing.

• Elements can include attributes that provide additional information (for example, src on an tag or href on an tag).
• Browsers parse the document tree (DOM) produced from the HTML and render visual output.
• CSS styles the rendered elements; JavaScript manipulates the DOM to create interactive behavior.

• Basic structure: doctype declaration, , (metadata, title, links to CSS/scripts), and (page content).
• Common element categories:
• Text structure: headings (
  

  –

  ), paragraphs (

  ), lists (

  ,
  ,
  1. ), blockquotes.
  2. Inline formatting: , , , .
  3. Media and embedding: ,