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<html>

The <html> 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.

Content categories	None.
Permitted content	One `<head>` element, followed by one `<body>` element.
Tag omission	The start tag may be omitted if the first thing inside the `<html>` element is not a comment. The end tag may be omitted if the `<html>` element is not immediately followed by a comment, and it contains a `<body>` element either that is not empty or whose start tag is present.
Permitted parents	As the root element of a document, or wherever a subdocument fragment is allowed in a compound document.
Permitted ARIA roles	None
DOM interface	`HTMLHtmlElement`

Attributes

This element includes the global attributes.

manifest: Specifies the URI of a resource manifest indicating resources that should be cached locally. See Using the application cache for details.
version: Specifies the version of the HTML Document Type Definition that governs the current document. This attribute is not needed, because it is redundant with the version information in the document type declaration.
xmlns: Specifies the XML Namespace of the document. Default value is "http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml". This is required in documents parsed with XML parsers, and optional in text/html documents.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>...</head>
  <body>...</body>
</html>

Accessibility concerns

Providing a lang attribute with a valid IETF identifying 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.

Including a valid lang declaration on the html element also ensures that important metadata contained in the page's <head>, such as the page's <title>, are also announced properly.

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
HTML Living Standard The definition of '<html>' in that specification.	Living Standard
HTML5 The definition of '<html>' in that specification.	Recommendation	Added support for the `manifest` attribute (deprecated later). Obsoleted the `version` attribute
HTML 4.01 Specification The definition of '<html>' in that specification.	Recommendation	Deprecated the `version` attribute

Browser compatibilityUpdate compatibility data on GitHub

	Desktop
	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari
Basic support	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
`manifest`	4	Yes	3.5 3.5 3 Versions of Firefox prior to 3.5 ignore the `NETWORK` and `FALLBACK` sections of the cache manifest file.	10	10.6	4
`version`	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
`xmlns`	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes