HTML, or HyperText Markup Language, is the foundation of web pages. It acts like a blueprint, defining the structure and content of a webpage using a series of tags. These tags tell the web browser how to display elements like headings, paragraphs, images, and links. While HTML itself doesn't provide visual styling, it lays the groundwork for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to add visual flair. Think of HTML as the skeleton and CSS as the muscles that give a webpage its form and function. By understanding HTML, you can create basic web page structures, organize content logically, and link to other webpages, making it the essential first step in the web development journey.