This element identifies the document as containing HTML elements. It should immediately follow the prologue document identifier and serves to surround all of the remaining text, including all other elements. HTML user agents use the presence of this element at the start of a HTML document to ensure that the document is actually HTML, according to the "text/html" MIME type. The document should be constructed thus :

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN">
<HTML>
The rest of the document should be placed here.
</HTML>

The HTML element is not visible upon HTML user agent rendering and can contain only the <HEAD> and <BODY> elements.

NOTE : The <HTML> element can be used to set Style Sheet information to be used for the whole document.

<!DOCTYPE> Document Structure Elements Overview <HEAD>