What is the difference between HTML tags and elements?

Question

I notice that most people use the words HTML tags and HTML elements interchangeably.

But what is the difference between them?

The way I s

Answer 1

HTML Elements

An HTML element usually consists of a start tag and end tag, with the content inserted in between:

Content goes here...

The HTML element is everything from the start tag to the end tag. Source

HTML Attributes

An attribute is used to define the characteristics of an HTML element and is placed inside the element's opening tag. All attributes are made up of two parts: a name and a value.

• All HTML elements can have attributes
• Attributes provide additional information about an element
• Attributes are always specified in the start tag
• Attributes usually come in name/value pairs like: name="value" Source

HTML Tag vs Element

"Elements" and "tags" are terms that are widely confused. HTML documents contain tags, but do not contain the elements. The elements are only generated after the parsing step, from these tags. Source: wikipedia > HTML_element

An HTML element is defined by a starting tag. If the element contains other content, it ends with a closing tag.

For example

is starting tag of a paragraph and

is closing tag of the same paragraph but

This is paragraph

is a paragraph element.

Source:tutorialspoint > html_elements