10 Lesser-Known HTML Tags and Their Uses

HTML content goes far beyond <div>, <a> and <p>. There are many more complex and powerful tags you may never have used, offering interesting functions from interactive graphics to sophisticated UI components.

1. <progress> and <meter>

These tags are used to display progress bars and scalar measurements. However, the next tag, meter – also known as progress – is displayed horizontally:

2. <dfn>

The dfn tag is used to define any term that will be explained later in the page.

3. <dialog>

Native HTML dialog!

4. <map> and <area>

These clickable images are called image maps.

5. <bdo>

A mysterious abbreviation—what does it do?

6. <base>

The <base> element sets a base URL for all relative URLs in the document. For example, using <a> with a domain will navigate to the full URL.

When you create a <base> tag, what happens?

Now many projects hard‑code the href value of <base> to obtain the full URL.

Frameworks such as Angular and Flutter Web also make use of it:

7. <time>

Used for dates and times.

8. <hgroup>

The <hgroup> tag indicates that the heading and the following content are related.

9. <kbd>

Represents keyboard input.

10. <cite>

Indicates the title of a book, song, movie, or other creative work.

These are the ten least known and least used HTML tags. Although their usage frequency is low, they can be very useful in various scenarios.