One of the first fundamental elements of the WWW (World Wide Web) is HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), which describes the primary format in which documents are distributed and viewed on the Web. Many of its features, such as platform independence, formatting structure and hypertext links, make it a very good format for Internet and Web documents.

The first basic specifications of the Web were HTML, HTTP and URL.
HTML was originally developed by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN in 1989. HTML was seen as a possibility for physicists using different computers to exchange information with each other using the Internet. Therefore, some features were needed: platform independence, hypertext possibilities and document structuring. Platform independence means that a document can be displayed in a similar way to different computers (so with different fonts, graphics and colors), which is vital for such a diverse audience.

Hypertext means that any word, phrase, image or other element of the document seen by a user (client) can refer to another document, which makes it much easier to navigate between multiple documents or even within the same document. The rigorous structuring of documents allows their conversion from one format to another as well as the querying of databases consisting of these documents.