You are looking at the HTML representation of the XML format.
HTML is good for debugging, but is unsuitable for application use.
Specify the format parameter to change the output format.
To see the non HTML representation of the XML format, set format=xml.
See the complete documentation, or API help for more information. 
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<api>
  <query-continue>
    <backlinks gblcontinue="0|Main_Page|3285" />
  </query-continue>
  <query>
    <pages>
      <page pageid="1316" ns="0" title="Style Guide" contentmodel="wikitext" pagelanguage="en" touched="2011-10-13T23:02:41Z" lastrevid="8840" counter="86590" length="3574" />
      <page pageid="1379" ns="4" title="OCE Space Simulation:Community Portal" contentmodel="wikitext" pagelanguage="en" touched="2015-01-06T19:09:00Z" lastrevid="11807" counter="108190" length="6782" />
      <page pageid="1624" ns="0" title="Wikimaster" contentmodel="wikitext" pagelanguage="en" touched="2017-04-05T21:00:46Z" lastrevid="10458" counter="32259" length="1182" />
      <page pageid="2462" ns="0" title="Beginner&#039;s Guide to the Wiki" contentmodel="wikitext" pagelanguage="en" touched="2011-10-13T23:10:50Z" lastrevid="10949" counter="27412" length="4760" />
      <page pageid="2479" ns="1" title="Talk:Mission" contentmodel="wikitext" pagelanguage="en" touched="2010-05-07T02:51:30Z" lastrevid="9200" counter="11281" length="3676" />
      <page pageid="2581" ns="10" title="Template:Sim" contentmodel="wikitext" pagelanguage="en" touched="2011-10-13T23:02:41Z" lastrevid="10947" counter="7295" length="364" />
      <page pageid="2582" ns="0" title="Member Page Protocol" contentmodel="wikitext" pagelanguage="en" touched="2011-10-13T23:02:41Z" lastrevid="8728" counter="6563" length="1896" />
      <page pageid="2681" ns="0" title="Example Member" contentmodel="wikitext" pagelanguage="en" touched="2021-03-07T22:55:00Z" lastrevid="12967" counter="16305" length="2662" />
      <page pageid="3172" ns="0" title="Quality Scale" contentmodel="wikitext" pagelanguage="en" touched="2011-10-13T23:03:25Z" lastrevid="10948" counter="6117" length="1601" />
      <page pageid="3191" ns="0" title="Wiki" contentmodel="wikitext" pagelanguage="en" touched="2020-06-05T21:34:41Z" lastrevid="10416" counter="2268" length="23" redirect="" new="" />
    </pages>
  </query>
</api>