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The :root selector allows you to target the highest-level “parent” element in the DOM, or document tree. It is defined in the CSS Selectors Level 3 spec as a “structural pseudo-class”, meaning it is used to style content based on its relationship with parent and sibling content.
In the overwhelming majority of cases you’re likely to encounter, :root refers to the <html> element in a webpage. In an HTML document the html element will always be the highest-level parent, so the behaviour of :root is predictable. However, since CSS is a styling language that can be used with other document formats, such as SVG and XML, the :root pseudo-class can refer to different elements in those cases. Regardless of the markup language, :root will always select the document’s top-most element in the document tree.
In the example below, the :root pseudo-class selector is used to create a background color behind the <body> element. In this case, the same effect could be achieved by using the html element selector in our CSS instead.
Points of Interest
- While the
:rootselector andhtmlselector both target the same HTML elements, it may be useful to know that:rootactually has a higher specificity. Pseudo-class selectors (but not pseudo-elements) have a specificity equal to that of a class, which is higher than a basic element selector.
Other Resources
Browser Support
| Chrome | Safari | Firefox | Opera | IE | Android | iOS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| yep | yep | yep | 9.5+ | IE9+ | yep | yep |
thanks, it’s really helpful. I always wondered why we just do not use HTML as a parent selector.
I’m trying to style the body when a div gets focus. I tried this but no luck. Any ideas?