HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is the code used in web pages. Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau created HTML at CERN in 1981 when they collaborated to create the World Wide Web.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) manages the rules and regulations that govern HTML, with that aim of ensuring that web developers around the world have a consistent approach to coding websites.
The main feature of HTML is the use of tags. These are instructions enclosed within angle brackets, for example "<b>" for bold text. Tags determine how a web browser displays the elements of a web page, and contain instructions for actions such as clicking on a link or submitting a web form.
Other forms of HTML and related terms include:
- SGML (Standard Generalised Markup Language)
- XHTML (Extensible HyperText Markup Language)
- XML (Extensible Markup Language)
- CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)
