CORRECTION:
I stand corrected. The specs I linked to below don't include an example, however there is an example included here:
Apples
Tasty, delicious fruit!
The apple is the pomaceous fruit of the apple tree.
Red Delicious
These bright red apples are the most common found in many
supermarkets.
...
clearly showing that my original interpretation wasn't correct. HT @cilerler.
To summarise, section can be used to subdivide e.g. parts following h1 including h1.
There is flexibility though according to this article. A nice article which inludes do's and don'ts.
Following is what made sense to me this morning:
ORIGINAL:
You need to close the tags as well, i.e.:
.....
There are a few questions about this on SO:
Quote from there:
Examples of sections would be chapters, the various tabbed pages in a tabbed dialog box, or the numbered sections of a thesis. A Web site's home page could be split into sections for an introduction, news items, and contact information
The section element represents a generic document or application section…The section element is not a generic container element. When an element is needed for styling purposes or as a convenience for scripting, authors are encouraged to use the div element instead.
So my understanding is that section marks high level parts, whereas e.g. the individual news items mentioned in the quote could be tagged as articles.
EDIT:
Ok from the official specs:
The section element represents a generic document or application section. A section, in this context, is a thematic grouping of content, typically with a header and possibly a footer.
The article element represents an independent section of a document, page, or site. This could be a forum post, a magazine or newspaper article, a blog entry, a user-submitted comment, or any other independent item of content.
While this is far from totally clear to me at least, I would say that the intent is that section is higher level than article. This statement of mine is also partially based on how the official specs are structured with section sitting directly under body followed only later by article:
4.3.4 Sections
4.3.4.1 The body element
4.3.4.2 The section element
4.3.4.3 The nav element
4.3.4.4 The article element
4.3.4.5 The aside element
4.3.4.6 The h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, and h6 elements
4.3.4.7 The header element
4.3.4.8 The footer element
4.3.4.9 The address element
4.3.4.10 Headings and Sections