What is HTML?

  • HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language
  • HTML is the standard markup language for creating Web pages
  • HTML describes the structure of a Web page
  • HTML consists of a series of elements
  • HTML elements tell the browser how to display the content
  • HTML elements label pieces of content such as "this is a heading", "this is a paragraph", "this is a link", etc.

A Simple HTML Document

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Page Title</title>
</head>
<body>

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

</body>
</html>

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!

Web Browsers

The purpose of a web browser (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari) is to read HTML documents and display them correctly.

A browser does not display the HTML tags, but uses them to determine how to display the document:

HTML Page Structure

Below is a visualization of an HTML page structure:

<html>
<head>
<title>Page title</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>This is a heading</h1>
<p>This is a paragraph.</p>
<p>This is another paragraph.</p>
</body>
</html>

Note: The content inside the <body> section will be displayed in a browser. The content inside the <title> element will be shown in the browser's title bar or in the page's tab.

HTML History

Since the early days of the World Wide Web, there have been many versions of HTML:

YearVersion
1989Tim Berners-Lee invented www
1991Tim Berners-Lee invented HTML
1993Dave Raggett drafted HTML+
1995HTML Working Group defined HTML 2.0
1997W3C Recommendation: HTML 3.2
1999W3C Recommendation: HTML 4.01
2000W3C Recommendation: XHTML 1.0
2008WHATWG HTML5 First Public Draft
2012WHATWG HTML5 Living Standard
2014W3C Recommendation: HTML5
2016W3C Candidate Recommendation: HTML 5.1
2017W3C Recommendation: HTML5.1 2nd Edition
2017W3C Recommendation: HTML5.2

This tutorial follows the latest HTML5 standard.

Interview Question--

1. What does HTML stand for?

  • Hot Typing Markup Language
  • Home Typing Modern Language
  • Hyper Text Markup Language
  • Home Testing Mixed Language

Ans. Hyper Text Markup Language


2. Which one of the following headers has the correct HTML syntax?

  • <h1>Welcome</h1>
  • {{h1}}Welcome{{:h1}}
  • {h1:Welcome}

Ans. <h1>Welcome</h1>


3. Who invented HTML?

  • Tim Berners-Lee
  • Brendan Eich
  • Guido van Rossum

Ans. Tim Berners-Lee


4. What is a correct HTML markup for the document type declaration?

  • <!DOCTYPE html>
  • DOCTYPE html;
  • --DOCTYPE html;

Ans. <!DOCTYPE html>