What is the standard language used to create and design web pages?

The standard language used to create and design web pages is HTML, which stands for HyperText Markup Language. HTML serves as the foundational building block of web development. It is used to structure content on the web, allowing developers to define elements like headings, paragraphs, links, images, and other content types that appear on web pages.

With HTML, developers can create a hierarchy of content using tags that instruct browsers on how to display information. This markup language is also essential for integrating other web technologies, as it can work in conjunction with CSS (for styling) and JavaScript (for functionality), but HTML itself is fundamental for laying out the page's content.

Thus, understanding HTML is crucial for anyone looking to engage in web design and development, as it forms the core structure that browsers interpret to present web pages to users.