Definition
The <html> tag represents the root, or top-level, element of an HTML document. It is often referred to as the root element as other elements must be descendants.
Example
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>HTML Title Element goes here.</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Displayed Page Title</h1>
<p>The main content of your page goes here.</p>
</body>
</html>Usage
- A
<html>element may content one<head>element and one<body>element. - No parent elements are allowed as this is the root element of a document.
- The start tag can be omitted if the first item inside the
<html>is not a comment. - The closing
<html>tag can be omitted if it is not immediately followed by a comment.
Attributes
The <html> element only supports the Global Attributes.
Best Practices
- You should use a
langattribute so that screen readers can easily identify the correct language. It also assists search engines and browsers, for example, with auto-translate. - You should keep the use of attributes and associated values defined on the
<html>element to a minimum. This allows for proper detection of the character encoding declaration (e.g.<meta charset="utf-8"/>) within the first 1024 bytes.
Specification
Browser Support
Desktop
| Chrome | Edge | Firefox | IE | Opera | Safari |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Mobile
| Android Webview | Chrome Android | Firefox Android | Opera Android | iOS Safari | Samsung Internet |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |