Text areas are used for multiple-line text entry. The default size of the text box is 1 row by 20 characters. You can change the size using the COLS and ROWS attributes. Here's a typical example of a text area with a text box 40 characters wide by 7 rows:

<TEXTAREA NAME="myarea" COLS="40" ROWS="7">
</TEXTAREA>

The text area can be initialized by placing the initial text between the tags:

<TEXTAREA NAME="myarea" COLS="40" ROWS="7">
Initial text
</TEXTAREA>

You can use JavaScript to read the contents of the text area box. This is done with the value property. Here is an example:

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
function seeTextArea (form) {
    alert (form.myarea.value);
}
</SCRIPT>

document.getElementById("myTextarea").value

Text area resizing control via CSS:

textarea { resize:both; }
 /* none|horizontal|vertical|both */
textarea.vert { resize:vertical; }
textarea.noResize { resize:none; }

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Textarea Properties (only properties available in all browsers are listed)

name	description
accessKey	Sets or retrieves an access key to an element.
attributes	Represents a collection of attribute nodes that belong to an element.
childElementCount	returns number of child elements
childNodes	returns a collection of all nodes that are immediate descendants of this element
children	returns a collection of elements that are immediate descendants of this element
className	read or write the style class(es) that belong to this element
clientHeight	returns the visible height of this element in pixels includes padding does not include scrollBar, border, margin.
clientWidth	returns the visible width of this element in pixels includes padding does not include scrollBar, border, margin
cols	read or write width in columns
contentEditable	read or write whether this element may be edited
defaultValue	read or write the element's default value. The default value can be set with the HTML value attribute
dir	read or write the element's direction property
disabled	read or write the element's ability to accept user interaction
firstChild	returns a reference to the element's first child
firstElementChild	returns a reference to the element's first element child
id	read or write the element's unique identifier
innerHtml	read or write the source code of element
innerText	read or write the text content of element
isContentEditable	returns indication of whether contents of element can be edited by user.
lang	read or write the language of the element
lastChild	returns a reference to the element's last child
name	read or write the element's name (used for sending form data to server)
nextSibling	returns a reference to the current element's parent's next child
nodeName	returns the name of the element
nodeType	returns an integer representing the element's type
nodeValue	read or write the element's value
offsetHeight	returns the visible height of this element in pixels includes padding, scrollBar, border does not include margin.
offsetLeft	returns offset in pixels from element's offsetParent
offsetParent	returns a reference to the element that this element's position is calculated from
outerHTML	read or write the HTML content, including start and end tags
outerText	read or write the element's text content, including the content of it's descendents
name	description

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Resources
Dottoro: textarea object