The <nav> element is primarily intended to be used for sections that contain main navigation blocks for the website, this can include links to other parts of the web page (e.g. anchors for a table of contents) or other pages entirely.
Navigation bars are essentially a list of links, so the ul and li elements are used to encase navigation links.
<ul>
<li><a href="#">Home</a></li>
<li><a href="#">About</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Contact</a></li>
</ul>
To make a navigation bar using the HTML5 nav element, encase the links within the nav tag.
<nav>
<a href="#">Home</a>
<a href="#">About</a>
<a href="#">Contact</a>
</nav>