Document: documentElement property

{{ApiRef("DOM")}}

The documentElement read-only property of the {{domxref("Document")}} interface returns the {{domxref("Element")}} that is the root element of the {{domxref("document")}} (for example, the {{HTMLElement("html")}} element for HTML documents).

Value

An {{domxref("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 {{HTMLElement("html")}} element. For any non-empty XML document, documentElement will always be whatever element is the root element of the document.

Specifications

{{Specifications}}

Browser compatibility

{{Compat}}