Element: firstElementChild property

{{ APIRef("DOM") }}

The Element.firstElementChild read-only property returns an element's first child {{domxref("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 {{domxref("Node.firstChild")}}.

Value

An {{domxref("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

{{Specifications}}

Browser compatibility

{{Compat}}

See also

• {{domxref("Element.nextElementSibling")}}
• {{domxref("Element.lastElementChild")}}