Quiz Entry - updated: 2026.07.05
What is the basic structure of an HTML document?
Every HTML document nests a <head> (metadata) and a <body> (visible content) inside a single root <html> element.
This skeleton is the same for almost every web page you'll ever write:
<html>
<head>
<title>Page Title</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>Visible content here</p>
</body>
</html>
What each part does:
<html>— the root element that wraps the entire document; it is always the outermost tag.<head>— the metadata section: information about the page (its title, character set, linked stylesheets). None of this appears in the page body itself.<body>— the visible content the browser actually renders in the window.
Two habits worth forming early: indent nested elements so the structure is readable (the browser ignores the indentation, but humans need it), and always close inner tags before their outer ones. Extra attributes — like styling hints — can be added to any element to extend it, which we cover separately.
Go deeper:
HTML elements reference — MDN — every element grouped by role (root, metadata, sectioning), a map of the whole document skeleton.