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Document: firstElementChild property

files/en-us/web/api/document/firstelementchild/index.md

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{{ APIRef("DOM") }}

The Document.firstElementChild read-only property returns the document's first child {{domxref("Element")}}, or null if there are no child elements.

For HTML documents, this is usually the only child, the root <html> element.

See {{domxref("Element.firstElementChild")}} for the first child element of specific elements within a document.

Value

An {{domxref("Element")}} object, or null.

Examples

js
document.firstElementChild;
// returns the root <html> element, the only child of the document

Specifications

{{Specifications}}

Browser compatibility

{{Compat}}

See also

  • {{domxref("Element.firstElementChild")}}