web api instance property

Document: documentElement property

The documentElement read-only property of the Document interface returns the Element that is the root element of the document (for example, the <html> element for HTML documents).

Value

An Element object.

Examples

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

SpecificationsStandards references are available on the canonical MDN page.

Browser compatibility

Browser compatibilityCompatibility data is available on the canonical MDN page.