HTML Elements
An HTML element is more than a tag — it is the full pattern of opening tag, content and closing tag (or a valid empty element). Global Tuts teaches elements as building blocks you combine with purpose.
Why this matters on Global Tuts
Understanding elements helps you read documentation, fix broken markup and choose semantic tags that search engines and screen readers understand.
Common beginner mistakes
- Confusing tags with elements
- Leaving closing tags open on nested elements
- Using div for everything instead of semantic tags
HTML Elements
The HTML element is everything from the start tag to the end tag:
Examples of some HTML elements:
| Start tag | Element content | End tag |
|---|---|---|
| <h1> | My First Heading | </h1> |
| <p> | My first paragraph. | </p> |
| <br> | none | none |
Note: Some HTML elements have no content (like the <br> element). These elements are called empty elements. Empty elements do not have an end tag!
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>
Try it Yourself »
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:
However, never rely on this! Unexpected results and errors may occur if you forget the end tag!
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:
HTML is Not Case Sensitive
HTML tags are not case sensitive: <P> means the same as <p>.
The HTML standard does not require lowercase tags, but W3C recommends lowercase in HTML, and demands lowercase for stricter document types like XHTML.
At globaltuts we always use lowercase tag names.