Introduction

Let me break down what HTML really is and how it fits into the world of the web. You probably use websites every single day, but have you ever stopped to think about how they actually work?

When you type a web address into your browser and hit Enter, a lot happens in the background. Your browser sends a request to a server somewhere in the world, the server sends back an HTML file, and your browser reads that file and turns it into the beautiful page you see.

How the Web Works

Here is the simplest way to think about it:

• You open a browser like Chrome, Firefox, or Edge
• The browser asks a server for a webpage
• The server sends back an HTML document
• The browser reads that HTML and renders it into what you see on screen

That is it. Your browser is basically a very fancy document reader. It takes HTML code, follows the instructions, and displays the result.

Tags vs Elements

Here is a concept that trips up a lot of beginners, but I promise it is simple. HTML uses tags. A tag is something like <h1> or <p>. Most tags come in pairs — an opening tag and a closing tag.

An element is the whole package: the opening tag, the content, and the closing tag. For example:

<p>This is a paragraph element.</p>

In this example:

• <p> is the opening tag
• This is a paragraph element. is the content
• </p> is the closing tag

The whole thing together is called an element. When people say "add a paragraph element," they mean add the whole thing.

Some tags do not have closing tags. These are called self-closing tags. You will meet them later.

See It in Action

Here is a minimal HTML page. Notice how every piece of content is wrapped in a tag that describes it.

<h1>Hello, World!</h1>
<p>This is a paragraph. The browser knows it is a paragraph because of the <code>&lt;p&gt;</code> tag.</p>
<p>Every tag tells the browser something about the content inside it.</p>