# Description and Basic Syntax
**HTML (HyperText Markup Language)** is the standard markup language for creating web pages and web applications. It provides the semantic structure and content of web documents, serving as the foundation upon which CSS and JavaScript build.
* **Declarative Language**: Describes *what* should be displayed, not *how* to compute it
* **Semantic Markup**: Elements convey meaning about their content
* **Tree Structure**: Nested elements form a Document Object Model (DOM)
* **Fault-Tolerant**: Browsers attempt to render even malformed HTML
### HTML terminology
#### Tags
**Tags** are the building blocks of HTML that define how content should be structured and displayed. They are keywords wrapped in angle brackets `< >`.
```html
This is a paragraph
```
{% hint style="success" %}
HTML tags come in two types. Opening and closing tags like `
...
` wrap around content to define its purpose. Self-closing tags like ``, ` `, and `` don't need a closing tag because they represent single elements without content inside them. These are also called void elements.
{% endhint %}
**Common tags by category:**
* **Structural**: ``, ``, ``
* **Text**: `
