The DOM (Document Object Model) is a tree-like structure that your browser builds when it reads an HTML page. It represents everything on the page in a way that JavaScript can understand and interact with.
So when your browser loads this HTML:
<html>
<body>
<h1>Hello!</h1>
<p>This is a web page.</p>
</body>
</html>
It creates a DOM that looks like this:
html
āāā body
āāā h1 ("Hello!")
āāā p ("This is a web page.")
HTML is like the ingredients list for a cake.
DOM is the actual cake on the table that JavaScript can touch, slice, decorate, or rearrange.
The DOM is like a live diagram of the web page.