Elements
HTML documents are defined by HTML elements.
HTML Elements
An HTML element is everything from the start tag to the end tag. 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
Nested 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>
<p>Paragraph here.</p>
</body>
</html>
The example above contains 3 HTML elements.HTML Example Explained
The <p> element:<p>Paragraph here.</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> Paragraph here.</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> Paragraph here.</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).
Empty HTML Elements
HTML elements with no content are called empty elements. Empty elements can be closed in the start tag.<br> is an empty element without a closing tag (the <br> tag 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 <br />, is the proper way of closing empty elements, accepted by HTML, XHTML and XML.
Even if <br> works in all browsers, writing <br /> instead is more future proof.
