HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language. HTML is the standard markup language for creating Web pages. HTML describes the structure of a Web page. HTML consists of a series of elements. HTML elements tell the browser how to display the content.

The first version of HTML was written by Tim Berners-Lee in 1993. Since then, there have been many different versions of HTML. The most widely used version throughout the 2000's was HTML 4.01, which became an official standard in December 1999. Another version, XHTML, was a rewrite of HTML as an XML language.

HTML is used to provide structure to a webpage and make it accessible to users of the internet through text, visual formatting and search factors. It is commonly known as the most basic building block of the web, working alongside CSS and JavaScript to create the websites we see while browsing.

The current specification is known as the HTML Living Standard. It is maintained by the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG), a consortium of the major browser vendors (Apple, Google, Mozilla, and Microsoft).