What is HyperText Markup Language (HTML)
HTML is the standard markup language used to create and structure content on the web. It uses tags to define elements like headings, paragraphs, images, and links, helping browsers know how to display a page.
Think of HTML as the skeleton of a website: it lays out the basic structure of a page, while other languages like CSS and JavaScript handle styling and interactivity. It’s readable by both humans and machines, which makes it essential for web development.
Examples
| HTML snippet | What it displays |
|---|---|
| <h1>Welcome</h1> | A large main heading that says “Welcome” |
| <p>This is a paragraph.</p> | A block of body text |
| <a href=”https://example.com”>Click here</a> | A clickable link |
| <img src=”lamp.jpg” alt=”Desk lamp”> | An image of a desk lamp |
| <ul><li>Item 1</li><li>Item 2</li></ul> | A bulleted list with two items |
A brief history
HTML was first developed in the early 1990s by Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web. It started out as a simple way to link documents, but has since evolved through multiple versions (HTML4, XHTML, and HTML5) into a super comprehensive tool for building dynamic, multimedia-rich web pages.
Today, HTML5 is the current standard and includes support for audio, video, and semantic elements, making websites more accessible and functional.
Good to know
HTML isn’t a programming language; it doesn’t perform logic or calculations. Instead, it’s a markup language that tells browsers how to organize and present content. You don’t need special software to write HTML (any text editor will do), but most developers use code editors with syntax highlighting to make it easier to write.
Modern websites usually combine HTML with CSS (for design) and JavaScript (for behavior) to create full-featured web experiences.
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