W3cubDocs

/Web APIs

Document: documentElement property

Document.documentElement returns the Element that is the root element of the document (for example, the <html> element for HTML documents).

Value

A Element object.

Examples

js

const rootElement = document.documentElement;
const firstTier = rootElement.childNodes;
// firstTier is a NodeList of the direct children of the root element
// such as <head> and <body>

for (const child of firstTier) {
  // do something with each direct child of the root element
}

Notes

For any non-empty HTML document, documentElement will always be an <html> element. For any non-empty XML document, documentElement will always be whatever element is the root element of the document.

Specifications

Browser compatibility

Desktop Mobile
Chrome Edge Firefox Internet Explorer Opera Safari WebView Android Chrome Android Firefox for Android Opera Android Safari on IOS Samsung Internet
documentElement 1 12 1 5 7 1 4.4 18 4 10.1 1 1.0

© 2005–2023 MDN contributors.
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License v2.5 or later.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Document/documentElement