HTML html element

The <html> HTML element represents the root (top-level element) of an HTML document, so it is also referred to as the root element. All other elements must be descendants of this element. There can be only one <html> element in a document.

While HTML does not require authors to specify <html> element start and ending tags, it is important for authors to do so as it will allow them to specify the lang for the webpage. Providing a lang attribute with a valid BCP 47 language tag on the <html> element will help screen reading technology determine the proper language to announce. The identifying language tag should describe the language used by the majority of the content of the page. Without it, screen readers will typically default to the operating system’s set language, which may cause mispronunciations.