HTML Elements

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# HTML Elements

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HTML documents are defined by HTML elements.

## HTML Elements

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

Start tag * | Element content | End tag *
--- | --- | ---
<p> | This is a paragraph | </p>
<a href="default.htm"> | This is a link | </a>
<br> |  |

* 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

Tip: You will learn about attributes in the next chapter of this tutorial.

## Nested HTML Elements

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

HTML documents consist of nested HTML elements.

## HTML Document Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>
<p>This is my first paragraph.</p>
</body>
</html>

The example above contains 3 HTML elements.

## HTML Example Explained

The <p> element:

<p>This is my first paragraph.</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>This is my first paragraph.</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>This is my first paragraph.</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).

## Don't Forget the End Tag

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

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

The example above works in most browsers, because the closing tag is considered optional.

Never rely on this. Many HTML elements will produce unexpected results and/or errors if you forget the end tag .

## Empty HTML Elements

HTML elements with no content are called empty elements.

<br> is an empty element without a closing tag (the <br> tag defines a line break).

Tip: In XHTML, all elements must be closed. Adding a slash inside the start tag, like <br />, is the proper way of closing empty elements in XHTML (and XML).

## HTML Tip: Use Lowercase Tags

HTML tags are not case sensitive: <P> means the same as <p>. Many web sites use uppercase HTML tags.

W3Schools use lowercase tags because the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommends lowercase in HTML 4, and demands lowercase tags in XHTML.

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