HTML5 DOCTYPE Declaration

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∟HTML5 DOCTYPE Declaration

This section describes the HTML5 DOCTYPE declaration statement - 'DOCTYPE html', which is much simpler than the HTML 4.01 version.

Since HTML5 is not based on SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) any more, it does not require any reference to a DTD (Document Type Definition) in the DOCTYPE declaration.

So the HTML5 DOCTYPE declaration statement is very simple:

<!DOCTYPE html>

Here is a very simple HTML5 document with the correct DOCTYPE declaration:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head><title>Hello</title></head>
<body>Hello world!</body>
</html>

As a comparison, DOCTYPE declaration statements for HTML 4.01 are listed below:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
   "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
   "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Frameset//EN"
   "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/frameset.dtd">