Tag <html> HTML Reference



Example

A simple HTML document, with the minimum of required tags:

<html>
<head>
<title>Title of the document</title>
</head>

<body>
The content of the document......
</body>

</html>

Browser Support

Internet Explorer Firefox Opera Google Chrome Safari

1. Definition and Usage

The <html> tag tells the browser that this is an HTML document.

The <html> element is also known as the root element.

The <html> tag is the container for all other HTML elements (except for the<!DOCTYPE> tag).


2. Differences Between HTML and XHTML

The xmlns attribute is required in XHTML, but invalid in HTML.

However, the HTML validator at http://www.w3.org does not complain when the xmlns attribute is missing in an XHTML document. This is because the namespace "xmlns=http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" is default, and will be added to the <html> tag even if you do not include it.


3. Required Attributes

DTD indicates in which HTML 4.01/XHTML 1.0 DTD the attribute is allowed. S=Strict, T=Transitional, and F=Frameset.

AttributeValueDescriptionDTD
xmlnshttp://www.w3.org/1999/xhtmlSpecifies the namespace to use (only for XHTML documents!)STF

4. Standard Attributes

The <html> tag supports the following standard attributes:

AttributeValueDescriptionDTD
dirrtl
ltr
Specifies the text direction for the content in an elementSTF
langlanguage_codeSpecifies a language code for the content in an elementSTF
xml:langlanguage_codeSpecifies a language code for the content in an element, in XHTML documentsSTF

5. Event Attributes

The <html> tag does not support any event attributes.


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