The <canvas> element is a powerful feature of modern web development. It provides a blank, rectangular area on your web page that you can use to draw graphics using JavaScript. This makes it ideal for creating everything from simple charts to complex games and interactive animations. Unlike images or SVG, the content inside a canvas is not directly accessible or editable by the user—it is rendered pixel by pixel via scripts. The <canvas> element fits seamlessly into web pages and is supported by all major browsers, making it a go-to solution when you need dynamic, script-driven graphics.

In the example above, you see a basic <canvas> tag with two important attributes: width and height. The id attribute is used to uniquely identify the canvas so you can access it with JavaScript. The width attribute sets the horizontal size of the canvas in pixels, while the height attribute sets the vertical size. If you do not specify these attributes, the canvas defaults to 300 pixels wide and 150 pixels tall. When you add this canvas to your page, it will appear as a blank rectangle with the specified dimensions. You can then use JavaScript to draw shapes, images, or text within this area.