HTML

In one line

HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is the standard language used to structure the content of web pages.

In simple words

HTML is the skeleton of every web page. It uses tags — keywords wrapped in angle brackets like <p> and <h1> — to label pieces of content as paragraphs, headings, images, links, and more. The browser reads these tags and renders the content accordingly.

HTML is a markup language, not a programming language. It describes structure and meaning (semantics), not behavior or logic. You use HTML to say "this is a heading" or "this is a list"; you use CSS to style it and JavaScript to make it interactive.

An HTML document has a tree-like structure: the <html> element contains <head> (metadata) and <body> (visible content). Every element you see on a page is a node in this tree, which is called the DOM.

Example

html

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>My Page</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>Hello, World!</h1>
    <p>This is a paragraph.</p>
  </body>
</html>

A minimal HTML document. The <h1> is a heading, the <p> is a paragraph, and both live inside <body>.