Web/API/Node/parentNode

The Node.parentNode read-only property returns the parent of the specified node in the DOM tree.

Syntax

parentNode = node.parentNode

parentNode is the parent of the current node. The parent of an element is an Element node, a Document node, or a DocumentFragment node.

Example

if (node.parentNode) {
  // remove a node from the tree, unless 
  // it's not in the tree already
  node.parentNode.removeChild(node);
}

Notes

Document and DocumentFragment nodes can never have a parent, so parentNode will always return null.

It also returns null if the node has just been created and is not yet attached to the tree.

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
DOMThe definition of 'Node: parentNode' 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
	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari	Android webview	Chrome for Android	Firefox for Android	Opera for Android	Safari on iOS	Samsung Internet
parentNode	Chrome Full support 1	Edge Full support 12	Firefox Full support 1	IE Full support 5.5	Opera Full support 7	Safari Full support 1.1	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

See also

• Node.firstChild
• Node.lastChild
• Node.childNodes
• Node.nextSibling
• Node.parentElement
• Node.previousSibling
• Node.removeChild

Node.parentNode by Mozilla Contributors is licensed under CC-BY-SA 2.5.