For client-side image maps to work, you must include somewhere in the HTML document a set of coordinates and URLs that define the mouse-sensitive regions of a client-side image map and the hyperlink to take for each region that is clicked by the user. You include those coordinates and links as values of attributes in special <area> tags; the collection of <area> specifications are enclosed within the <map> tag and its end tag </map>.

The <map> segment may appear anywhere in the body of any HTML document. Browsers that do not support client-side image maps will ignore the contents of the <map> tag. The <map> contents never get displayed in the browser window.

The value of the name attribute in the <map> tag is the name used by the usemap attribute in an <img> tag to locate the image map specification. The name must be unique and not used by another <map> in the document, but more than one image map may reference the same <map> specifications