HTML Elements

An HTML element is defined by a start tag, some content, and an end tag.

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

<tagname>Content goes here...</tagname>

Examples of some HTML elements:

<h1>My First Heading</h1>
<p>My first paragraph.</p>
Start tagElement contentEnd tag
<h1>My First Heading</h1>
<p>My first paragraph.</p>
<br>nonenone

Nested HTML Elements

HTML elements can be nested (this means that elements can contain other elements).

All HTML documents consist of nested HTML elements.

The following example contains four HTML elements (<html><body><h1> and <p>):

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>
<h1>My First Heading</h1>
<p>My first paragraph.</p>
</body>
</html>

Example Explained

The <html> element is the root element and it defines the whole HTML document.

It has a start tag <html> and an end tag </html>.

Then, inside the <html> element there is a <body> element:

<body>
<h1>My First Heading</h1>
<p>My first paragraph.</p>
</body>

The <body> element defines the document’s body.

It has a start tag <body> and an end tag </body>.

Then, inside the <body> element there are two other elements: <h1> and <p>:

<h1>My First Heading</h1>
<p>My first paragraph.</p>

The <h1> element defines a heading.

It has a start tag <h1> and an end tag </h1>:

<h1>My First Heading</h1>

The <p> element defines a paragraph.

It has a start tag <p> and an end tag </p>:

<p>My first paragraph.</p>

Never Skip the End Tag

Some HTML elements will display correctly, even if you forget the end tag:

Example

<html>
<body>
<p>This is a paragraph
<p>This is a paragraph
</body>
</html>

Empty HTML Elements

HTML elements with no content are called empty elements.

The <br> tag defines a line break, and is an empty element without a closing tag:

Example

<p>This is a <br> paragraph with a line break.</p>

VISHNU PRIYA