Document.documentElement returns the Element that is the root element of the document (for example, the <html> element for HTML documents).
Syntax
const element = document.documentElement
Example
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 | Status | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| DOM The definition of 'Document.documentElement' in that specification. |
Living Standard |
Browser compatibility
The compatibility table on this page is generated from structured data. If you'd like to contribute to the data, please check out https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data and send us a pull request.
Update compatibility data on GitHub
| Desktop | Mobile | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
documentElement | Chrome Full support 1 | Edge Full support 12 | Firefox Full support 1 | IE Full support 5 | Opera Full support 7 | Safari Full support 1 | WebView Android Full support 1 | Chrome Android Full support 18 | Firefox Android Full support 4 | Opera Android Full support 10.1 | Safari iOS Full support 1 | Samsung Internet Android Full support 1.0 |
Legend
- Full support
- Full support