---
title: "content-type · Meta Tag · zhead"
canonical_url: "https://zhead.dev/meta/content-type"
last_updated: "2026-08-10T16:29:03.372Z"
meta:
  description: "Provides the legacy pragma form of an HTML character encoding declaration. For conforming HTML, its content must be text/html; charset=utf-8."
  "og:description": "Provides the legacy pragma form of an HTML character encoding declaration. For conforming HTML, its content must be text/html; charset=utf-8."
  "og:title": "content-type · Meta Tag · zhead"
---

Meta tags

# content-type

Provides the legacy pragma form of an HTML character encoding declaration. For conforming HTML, its content must be text/html; charset=utf-8.

## Code examples

Good example

```
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
```

The only conforming content value for this pragma in an HTML document.

Avoid this example

```
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
```

Legacy encodings are not allowed in this HTML pragma.

Avoid this example

```
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="application/xhtml+xml; charset=UTF-8">
```

This pragma is for HTML and has no place in an XML document.

Avoid this example

```
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="">
```

An empty value does not declare an encoding.

## Recommendations

- 01 Prefer the Charset Attribute Use \<meta charset="utf-8"> for new HTML. It says the same thing with less markup.
- 02 Do Not Declare It Twice A document must not contain both this pragma and a meta charset declaration. The HTTP Content-Type header should also identify the response as HTML encoded with UTF-8.

## Related documentation

- [HTML Living Standard: Semantics](https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/semantics.html#attr-meta-http-equiv-content-type)
- [W3C: Qa Html Encoding Declarations.En](https://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-html-encoding-declarations.en)

## Related meta tags

### [Content-Security-Policy](https://zhead.dev/meta/content-security-policy)

http-equiv

Enforces a Content Security Policy from the document head. A policy limits where scripts, styles, images, connections, and other resources can come from, which reduces the impact of content injection bugs.

```
<meta http-equiv="Content-Security-Policy" content="default-src 'self'; object-src 'none'; base-uri 'self';">
```

Uses the same origin by default, blocks plugin content, and limits base URLs to the same origin.

### [content-type](https://zhead.dev/meta/content-type)

http-equiv

Provides the legacy pragma form of an HTML character encoding declaration. For conforming HTML, its content must be text/html; charset=utf-8.

```
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
```

The only conforming content value for this pragma in an HTML document.

### [default-style](https://zhead.dev/meta/default-style)

http-equiv

Selects the preferred CSS style sheet set by name when a page offers alternate titled stylesheets. Browser support is limited.

```
<meta http-equiv="default-style" content="Main Style">
```

Valid when a linked stylesheet set has the exact title Main Style.

### [refresh](https://zhead.dev/meta/refresh)

http-equiv

Reloads the current page after a delay or performs a timed redirect. Automatic navigation can confuse users, so a server redirect is usually a better choice.

```
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="5; URL=https://example.com/next">
```

Valid timed redirect syntax. Prefer an HTTP redirect unless the visible delay serves a real purpose.

### [X-UA-Compatible](https://zhead.dev/meta/x-ua-compatible)

http-equiv

A legacy Internet Explorer pragma whose only conforming value is IE=edge. Current user agents must ignore it, so new pages should omit it.

```
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
```

The only value allowed by the HTML standard, kept here for reading legacy markup. Current browsers ignore it.