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

Specification
DOM Standard
# ref-for-dom-document-documentelement①

Browser compatibility

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