What are the difference between an element and a node in XML ?

Here is the statement:

• • The primary data type for the entire DOM is the Node object.

• • Node should be an element node, a text node, an attribute node or any of the “Node types”.

• • An XML element is all from including the element’s start tag to the element’s end tag.

DOM spec defines some types of nodes were:

1. Document — Element (maximum of one), ProcessingInstruction, Comment, DocumentType
2. DocumentFragment — Element, ProcessingInstruction, Comment, Text, CDATASection, EntityReference
3. DocumentType — no children
4. EntityReference — Element, ProcessingInstruction, Comment, Text, CDATASection, EntityReference
5. Element — Element, Text, Comment, ProcessingInstruction, CDATASection, EntityReference
6. Attr — Text, EntityReference
7. ProcessingInstruction — no children
8. Comment — no children
9. Text — no children
10. CDATASection — no children
11. Entity — Element, ProcessingInstruction, Comment, Text, CDATASection, EntityReference
12. Notation — no children

XML Infoset that used by XPath has a smaller set of nodes:

1. The Document Information Item
2. Element Information Items
3. Attribute Information Items
4. Processing Instruction Information Items
5. Unexpanded Entity Reference Information Items
6. Character Information Items
7. Comment Information Items
8. The Document Type Declaration Information Item
9. Unparsed Entity Information Items
10. Notation Information Items
11. Namespace Information Items

XPath have some types of nodes:

1. root nodes
2. element nodes
3. text nodes
4. attribute nodes
5. namespace nodes
6. processing instruction nodes
7. comment nodes

    An element is a type of node. Many other types of nodes abide and serve different purposes.

Simple answer:

     An element is an individual kind of node. A node can be a number of various type of things: some text, an element, an entity and a comment.