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

<tagname>Content goes here...</tagname>

The HTML element is everything from the start tag to the end tag:

<p>My first paragraph.</p>
Start tag Element content End tag
<h1> My First Heading </h1>
<p> My first paragraph. </p>
<br>

HTML elements with no content are called empty elements. Empty elements do not have an end tag, such as the <br> element (which indicates a line break).