<body>: The Document Body element

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.

The <body> HTML element represents the content of an HTML document. There can be only one <body> element in a document.

Attributes

This element includes the global attributes.

Color of text for hyperlinks when selected. Do not use this attribute! Use the CSS color property in conjunction with the :active pseudo-class instead.

background

URI of an image to use as a background. Do not use this attribute! Use the CSS background property on the element instead.

bgcolor

Background color for the document. Do not use this attribute! Use the CSS background-color property on the element instead.

bottommargin

The margin of the bottom of the body. Do not use this attribute! Use the CSS margin-bottom property on the element instead.

leftmargin

The margin of the left of the body. Do not use this attribute! Use the CSS margin-left property on the element instead.

Color of text for unvisited hypertext links. Do not use this attribute! Use the CSS color property in conjunction with the :link pseudo-class instead.

onafterprint

Function to call after the user has printed the document.

onbeforeprint

Function to call when the user requests printing of the document.

onbeforeunload

Function to call when the document is about to be unloaded.

onblur

Function to call when the document loses focus.

onerror

Function to call when the document fails to load properly.

onfocus

Function to call when the document receives focus.

onhashchange

Function to call when the fragment identifier part (starting with the hash ('#') character) of the document's current address has changed.

onlanguagechange

Function to call when the preferred languages changed.

onload

Function to call when the document has finished loading.

onmessage

Function to call when the document has received a message.

onoffline

Function to call when network communication has failed.

ononline

Function to call when network communication has been restored.

onpopstate

Function to call when the user has navigated session history.

onresize

Function to call when the document has been resized.

onstorage

Function to call when the storage area has changed.

onunload

Function to call when the document is going away.

rightmargin

The margin of the right of the body. Do not use this attribute! Use the CSS margin-right property on the element instead.

text

Foreground color of text. Do not use this attribute! Use CSS color property on the element instead.

topmargin

The margin of the top of the body. Do not use this attribute! Use the CSS margin-top property on the element instead.

Color of text for visited hypertext links. Do not use this attribute! Use the CSS color property in conjunction with the :visited pseudo-class instead.

Examples

html
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <title>Document title</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <p>
      The <code>&lt;body&gt;</code> HTML element represents the content of an
      HTML document. There can be only one <code>&lt;body&gt;</code> element in
      a document.
    </p>
  </body>
</html>

Result

Technical summary

Content categories None.
Permitted content Flow content.
Tag omission The start tag may be omitted if the first thing inside it is not a space character, comment, <script> element or <style> element. The end tag may be omitted if the <body> element has contents or has a start tag, and is not immediately followed by a comment.
Permitted parents It must be the second element of an <html> element.
Implicit ARIA role generic
Permitted ARIA roles No role permitted
DOM interface HTMLBodyElement

Specifications

Specification
HTML Standard
# the-body-element

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also