HTML <table> table Tag Reference
The table HTML tag means table, and it divides content up into rows and columns.
Use it to display tabular data, never for page layout
The <table> HTML/xHTML tag
The table tag divides content into a grid of rows and columns, with optional headers and footers.
It must contain table row <tr> and table data <td> tags.
When to use the <table> tag (semantic use)
Use the table tag for tabular data only, i.e. where the data describes a number of objects that have the same properties.
By "tabular data", we mean that the contents of each row (or sometimes column) have a regular pattern. e.g. The first column in each row contains the date, the next one has the transaction id, the third has a value etc.
Never use tables for structuring the layout of the page, as they are semantically incorrect and also much less flexible than more generic containers, like <div>s. You can move divs around the page, float 'em, position 'em absolutely, stack 'em etc. etc., and while you can do the same with table rows & cells, your markup won't make any sense if the table contents are displayed out of sequence.
The <table> tag is valid in all current versions of HTML and xHTML, and it should always have a closing </table> tag.
Example of <table> tag use
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<thead>
<tr>
<th>Column 1</th>
<th>Column 2</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Example of a simple table</td>
<td>The table has 2 columns, each one with a column header.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>The first 2 rows each have 2 cells</td>
<td>One cell in each column.</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>