HTML <html> Tag

The HTML <html> tag represents the root of an HTML document. It is the container that contains all other HTML elements.

Note that the <html> tag doesn't contain the <!doctype>, because technically, the <!doctype> is not an HTML element.

Syntax

The <html> tag is written as <html></html> with all other HTML elements enclosed between the start and end tags.

The <html> element is the first HTML element in an HTML document (however, it must be preceded by a <!doctype>).

The first tag inside a <html> tag must be a <head> tag, followed by a <body> tag.

Like this:

Attributes

Attributes can be added to an HTML element to provide more information about how the element should appear or behave.

The <html> element accepts the following attributes.

AttributeDescription
ManifestSpecifies the address of the document's application cache manifest. The value must be a valid URL.

Global Attributes

The following attributes are standard across all HTML elements. Therefore, you can use these attributes with the <html> tag , as well as with all other HTML tags.

For a full explanation of these attributes, see HTML 5 global attributes.

Event Handlers

Event handler content attributes enable you to invoke a script from within your HTML. The script is invoked when a certain "event" occurs. Each event handler content attribute deals with a different event.

Most event handler content attributes can be used on all HTML elements, but some event handlers have specific rules around when they can be used and which elements they are applicable to.

For more detail, see HTML event handler content attributes.