<HTML> and </HTML>

Description:

The <HTML> tag defines the start and end of an entire web document. The <HTML> must be the first thing in a document and the </HTML> must be the last. Note that Internet Explorer will allow text and tags before <HTML> and after </HTML>, but this is not compatible with Netscape and other browsers.

Attributes:

dir=direction
Indicates the language of the HTML document.
lang="lang"
Indicates the language of the HTML document.

Examples:

<HTML>
<BODY>
This is some text
</BODY>
</HTML>

This is about as small of an HTML document as you can get. As you can see, then <HTML> and </HTML> tags surround everything else within the document.