Element: firstElementChild property

The Element.firstElementChild read-only property returns an element’s first child Element, or null if there are no child elements.

Element.firstElementChild includes only element nodes. To get all child nodes, including non-element nodes like text and comment nodes, use firstChild.

Value

An Element object, or null.

Examples

<ul id="list">
  <li>First (1)</li>
  <li>Second (2)</li>
  <li>Third (3)</li>
</ul>

const list = document.getElementById("list");
console.log(list.firstElementChild.textContent);
// logs "First (1)"

Specifications

Browser compatibility

See also

• nextElementSibling
• lastElementChild