HTML <a> Tag
Topic: HTML5 Tags ReferencePrev|Next
Description
The <a> (short for anchor) tag defines a hyperlink.
An anchor i.e. the <a> element can be used in two ways:
- To create a link to another document, by using the
hrefattribute. - To create a bookmark inside a document, by using the
idattribute.
The following table summarizes the usages context and the version history of this tag.
| Placement: | Inline |
|---|---|
| Content: | Inline, and text |
| Start/End Tag: | Start tag: required, End tag: required |
| Version: | HTML 2, 3.2, 4, 4.01, 5 |
In the example that follows, the <a> tag defines a link. The source anchor is the text "W3C Website" and the destination anchor is "https://www.w3.org/":
This link designates the home page of the 'World Wide Web Consortium' website. When a user click on it, the web browser will retrieve the resource, in this case, an HTML document.
Note: The most important attribute of the <a> tag is the href attribute, which indicates the destination of an hyperlink.
By default, links will appear as follows in most of the browsers:
- An unvisited link is underlined and blue.
- A visited link is underlined and purple.
- An active link is underlined and red.
However you can overwrite this using CSS. Learn more about styling links.
Syntax
The basic syntax of the <a> tag is given with:
The example below shows the <a> tag in action.
Example
Try this code »<a href="https://www.tutorialrepublic.com/">Tutorial Republic</a>
<a href="kites.jpg"><img src="kites-thumb.jpg" alt="kites"></a>
<a href="https://www.google.com/">Google Search</a>Tag-Specific Attributes
The following table shows the attributes that are specific to the <a> tag.
| Attribute | Value | Description |
|---|---|---|
charset |
charset | Obsolete Specifies the character encoding of the linked resource. |
coords |
x,y coordinates | Obsolete Specifies the position of the link on the screen. |
download |
filename | Specifies whether to download the linked resource instead of navigating to it, when the user clicks on the link. |
href |
URL | Specifies the location of the destination document or web resource (such as an image, PDF, or other media file). |
hreflang |
language-code | Specifies the language of the linked document. This attribute may only be used when href is specified. |
media |
media-query | Specifies the media for which the linked resource is designed. |
name |
text | Obsolete Specifies the name of an anchor. Use the global attribute id instead. |
rel |
alternate |
Describes the relationship between the document containing the hyperlink and the linked resource. This attribute should be used only if the href attribute is present. |
rev |
link-type | Obsolete Describes the relationship of the linked document back to the source document (the opposite of the rel attribute). |
shape |
rect |
Obsolete Specifies the shape of the hotspot region i.e. selectable region for hyperlinks. |
target |
_blank_parent_self_topframename |
Defines a target to open the linked resource specified in the href attribute. |
type |
content-type | Specifies the content type (MIME type) of the linked content–for example, "image/jpeg", "text/html" etc. |
Global Attributes
Like all other HTML tags, the <a> tag supports the global attributes in HTML5.
Event Attributes
The <a> tag also supports the event attributes in HTML5.
Browser Compatibility
The <a> tag is supported in all major modern browsers.
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Basic Support—
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Further Reading
See tutorial on: HTML Links, CSS Links.
Related tag: <base>.
