HTML Elements

An HTML element usually consists of a start tag and end tag, with the content inserted in between:

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

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

<p>My first paragraph.</p>

Some HTML elements are empty (have no content) and do not have an end tag, such as the <br> element (which indicates a line break).

Nested HTML Elements

HTML elements can be nested (elements can contain elements).

All HTML documents consist of nested HTML elements.

This example contains four HTML elements:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>

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

</body>
</html>

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).

<html>
<body>

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

</body>
</html>

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>).

<body>

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

</body>

The <h1> element defines a heading.

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

The element content is: My First Heading.

<h1>My First Heading</h1>

The <p> element defines a paragraph.

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

The element content is: My first paragraph.

<p>My first paragraph.</p>

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

<html>
<body>

<p>This is a paragraph
<p>This is a paragraph

</body>
</html>