Document.documentElement

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
DOM Standard (DOM) # ref-for-dom-document-documentelement①

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	1	18	4	10.1	1	1.0

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https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Document/documentElement