Example
Specify the character encoding for the HTML document:
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
</head>
Try it Yourself »
Definition and Usage
The charset attribute specifies the character encoding for the HTML document.
Tip: The charset attribute can be locally overridden using the lang attribute on any element.
Browser Support
| Attribute | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| charset | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Differences Between HTML 4.01 and HTML5
The charset attribute is new in HTML5, and replaces the need for: <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
Specifying the character-set using the http-equiv attribute is still allowed, but the new
way requires less code.
Syntax
<meta charset="character_set">
Attribute Values
| Value | Description |
|---|---|
| character_set | Specifies the character encoding for the HTML document. Common values:
In theory, any character encoding can be used, but no browser understands all of them. The more widely a character encoding is used, the better the chance that a browser will understand it. To view all available character encodings, look at IANA character sets. |