HTML Entities — When < Matters and When It Doesn't

Displaying code on a page? <div> written raw becomes an actual div. Entities are the escape hatch — and in UTF-8 days, you need fewer than you think.

The five that are mandatory

&lt;     →  <      (less-than — starts a tag otherwise)
&gt;     →  >      (greater-than)
&amp;    →  &      (ampersand — starts an entity otherwise)
&quot;   →  "      (inside double-quoted attributes)
&#39;    →  '      (inside single-quoted attributes)

The useful ones

     non-breaking space — keeps "₹ 500" together on line wraps
© ©   → →   × ×   … …   — —
₹ ₹  (or just type ₹ — see below)

The 2026 reality

With <meta charset="UTF-8"> you can type ₹ © → 你好 emoji directly — entities are only required for the five reserved characters and useful for invisible ones ( , ‍). Security note: escaping user input with these five is exactly how XSS is prevented server-side — same table, higher stakes.