The <meta> element

Short for ‘Metadata’. Provides various different kinds of metadata, usually about the whole document, but sometimes for metadata that forms part of the page's content.

This is an empty element, so it shouldn't have a closing tag.

Full list of attributes

All the usual HTML global attributes are available

charset

Gives the character set (actually character encoding would be more accurate) of the HTML file.

content

The value that should be associated with the keyword given in either the name, http-equiv, or itemprop attributes.

http-equiv

Used to provide information that might otherwise be taken from HTTP headers, if those are present. Also used for specifying character encoding, although it's easier to use the newer charset attribute.

name

Keyword describing a piece of document metadata.

Further information

• Official specification for <meta> element