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What is an HTML Tag?

Published on November 20, 2020
Erin Glass

By Erin Glass

Senior Manager, DevEd

What is an HTML Tag?

An HTML tag is a piece of markup language used to indicate the beginning and end of an HTML element in an HTML document.

As part of an HTML element, HTML tags help web browsers convert HTML documents into web pages. For example, the <p> tag is used to organize text content into paragraph elements and the <img> tag is used to embed image elements.

Many tags, though not all, use an opening tag and closing tag to wrap around the content that they are used to modify. Closing tags are denoted with a backslash like this: </tag_name>. HTML tags are not visible in the browser.

The following diagram illustrates how tags are commonly used in HTML elements:

Diagram of an HTML element

For more educational resources related to HTML elements, please visit:

A complete list of educational resources related to HTML is available on our HTML page.

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About the author

Erin Glass
Erin Glass
Author
Senior Manager, DevEd
See author profile

Open source advocate and lover of education, culture, and community.

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