A single page can contain hundreds or thousands of elements, When you land on a website, all the items you see in front of you; the paragraph texts, the page banners, and the navigation links are all elements of the web page. The term element is a just a name given to any piece of a web page. Many HTML elements are actually invisible to visitors and work quietly behind the scenes to provide web crawlers and search engines useful information about the site. On a fundamental level, every HTML document is a hierarchical structure made up of elements and their content.

Other useful HTML tutorials:

Tags depreciate as new web technologies evolve. HTML tags are not case sensitive: <P> means the same as <p>. Many web sites use uppercase HTML tags. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommends lowercase in HTML4, and demands lowercase tags in XHTML.

HTML5 was explicitly designed to degrade gracefully in browsers that don’t support it. The reason is simple; we are all cave people. Browsers now have tabs, CSS, and XmlHttpRequest, but their HTML renderers are stuck in 1999. The Web can’t move forward without accounting for the installed base. HTML5 understands this. It offers real benefits to page authors today while promising even more to page readers tomorrow as browsers are slowly upgraded. HTML5 new elements enable clearer, simpler markup that makes pages more obvious. Div and span still have their places, but those places are much more restricted than they used to be. Many pages will no longer need to use them. Although not all browsers will support these new elements at first, the same has been true for most elements introduced after HTML was first invented: img, table, object, and many more. Support will come with time. The future looks bright.

This is the alphabetical list of the HTML and HTML5 elements.

A

<a> (Anchor or Hyperlink)
<abbr> (Abbreviation)
<acronym> Obsolete since HTML5, use <abbr>
<address> (Address or Contact Information)
<applet> Deprecated since HTML4, Obsolete since HTML5 - use <object>
<area> (Image-map Hyperlink)
<article> (Independent Article) HTML5
<aside> (Tangential Content) HTML5
<audio> (Embedded Audio Stream) HTML5

B

<b> (B, formerly known as Bold)
<base> (Base URL)
<basefont> Deprecated since HTML4, Obsolete since HTML5
<bdi> (Bi-directional Isolate) HTML5
<bdo> (Bi-directional Override)
<bgsound> (Background Sound) Non-standard
<big> Obsolete since HTML5
<blink> Non-standard
<blockquote> (Block Quotation)
<body> (Document Body)
<br> (Line Break)
<button> (Interactive Button)

C

<canvas> (Dynamic Graphics Drawing Area) HTML5
<caption> (Table Caption)
<center> Deprecated since HTML4
<cite> (Work Title)
<code> (Code Fragment)
<col> (Table Column)
<colgroup> (Table Column Group)
<command> (User Action Control) HTML5

D

<datalist> (List of Predefined Options) HTML5
<dd> (Definition Description)
<del> (Deleted Text)
<details> (On-demand Control) HTML5
<dfn> (Definition)
<dir> Deprecated since HTML4, Obsolete since HTML5
<div> (Document Division)
<dl> (Definition List)
<dt> (Definition Term)

E

<em> (Emphasis)
<embed> (Embed) HTML5

F

<fieldset> (Set of Form Controls)
<figcaption> (Figure Caption) HTML5
<figure> (Figure) HTML5
<font> Deprecated since HTML4, Obsolete since HTML5
<footer> (Footer) HTML5
<form> (User-submittable Form)
<frame> Obsolete since HTML5
<frameset> Obsolete since HTML5

H

<h1> , <h2> , <h3> , <h4> , <h5> , <h6> (Heading Elements)
<head> (Document Metadata Container)
<header> (Header) HTML5
<hgroup> (Heading Group) HTML5
<hr> (Thematic Break, formerly Horizontal Rule)
<html> (Document Root)

I

<i> (Offset Text, formerly Italics)
<iframe> (Inline Frame)
<img> (Image)
<input> (Input Form Control)
<ins> (Inserted Text)
<isindex> Deprecated since HTML4

K

<kbd> (Keyboard Input)
<keygen> (Key-pair Generator) HTML5

L

<label> (Form Control Label)
<legend> (Field Set Legend)
<li> (List Item)
<link> (Metadata for Inter-document Relationships)

M

<map> (Image Map)
<mark> (Marked Text) HTML5
<marquee> Non-standard
<menu> (List of Commands) Was deprecated in HTML4 but resurrected in HTML5
<meta> (Metadata)
<meter> (Scalar Gauge) HTML5

N

<nav> (Navigation) HTML5
<nobr> (No Breaks) Non-standard
<noframes> Obsolete since HTML4
<noscript> (Script Fallback Content)

O

<object> (Embedded Object)
<ol> (Ordered List)
<optgroup> (Option Grouping)
<option> (Option Item)
<output> (Calculated Result) HTML5

P

<p> (Paragraph)
<param> (Object Parameter)
<pre> (Preformatted Text)
<progress> (Progress Indicator) HTML5

Q

<q> (Quotation)

R

<rp> (Ruby Parentheses) HTML5 Unimplemented
<rt> (Ruby Text) HTML5 Unimplemented
<ruby> HTML5 Unimplemented

S

<samp> (Sample Text)
<script> (Embedded Script)
<section> (Document Outline Section) HTML5
<select> (Selection List)
<small> (Small Text)
<source> (Embedded Media Source) HTML5
<spacer> (Layout Space)
<span> (Text Span)
<strong> (Strong Emphasis)
<style> (CSS Style Sheet)
<sub> (Subscript)
<summary> (Summary of Details) HTML5
<sup> (Superscript)

T

<table> (Tabular Data)
<tbody> (Table Body)
<td> (Table Data Cell)
<textarea> (Multiline Text Input)
<tfoot> (Table Footer)
<th> (Table Header Cell)
<thead> (Table Header)
<time> (Date or Time) HTML5
<title> (Document Title)
<tr> (Table Row)
<track> HTML5
<tt> (Teletype Text) Deprecated since HTML5

U

<u> (Underline up to HTML4, unarticulated in HTML5)
<ul> (Unordered List)

V

<var> (Variable)
<video> (Embedded Video Stream) HTML5

W

<wbr> (Word Break Opportunity) HTML5

In Closing

It would be my pleasure to read your comments and please don’t hesitate to add anything as you fully realize that I missed some other great HTML tags. Feel free to share those with our readers.